


Forgotten Collateral

by gracediamondsfear



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ankle Cuffs, Blindfolds, Drug Use, Dubious Consent, Dystopian Future, F/M, Forced Masturbation, Hand Feeding, Handcuffs, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, On the Run, Oral Sex, Power Imbalance, Reylo - Freeform, Sexual Coercion, Star Wars AU, Vaginal Sex, a few D/s vibes, bad boy good lips, but no vibrators, hate to lust to like to love, medium to slow burn, reylo au, smoking fetish, tattooed kylo, your classic byronic anti hero
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2020-05-01 06:55:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 96,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19170676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracediamondsfear/pseuds/gracediamondsfear
Summary: In the future, the economy has crumbled and the chasm between rich and poor is insurmountable. In this world its eat or be eaten, do what you can to survive. Rey has escaped a horrid fate to become a loner runner, getting things for people, trading and selling, squatting wherever she can, always on the run. That is, until her friend Rose gets her tangled up in a plan to escape to a new Utopia halfway across the country.A plan that needs ex-con and "supplier" Kylo Ren's help. And he can help, as long as they leave Rey with him as collateral.**i have quite a bit of this written so I’m going to put up a few big chunks in fast succession just so we can all get into the story...but eventually the updates will slow down as I have three other WIPs that need my attention 😊**





	1. Runner

**REY**

 

When things started to fall apart, really just go right to shit, the prisons filled up like popcorn machines. Five or six guys in a cell, murderers sharing rooms with tax evaders, burglars and rapists, whereever they could fit; prisoners left to sleep OUTSIDE in the yard when it got too hot, too humid, like some death row slumber party. And even then, the prisons continued to take people in, because the people on the outside were scared at the state of the worldAnd when the people are scared they want to think that there’s someone trying to fix it, that something, somewhere is being done. So people were arrested and convicted of anything that would stick and sent away at the drop of a hat, their sentences held up as examples of how the powers at be were working to fix the world’s problems. It took the “undesirables” off the streets, which did nothing but make room for someone to take their place. It was a never ending cycle, because the streets themselves were undesirable.

 

But then things got worse. Governments: city, state, nation, ran out of money and resources and so prison workers couldn’t get paid, leaving them as dangerous and unlawful as life on the outside, filled with bribery and corruption, black markets and murder for hire. Fewer people were willing to risk their lives guarding the untamable anarchy and so as soon as people were sent away, they were quietly released to a halfway house to relieve some of the pressure on the system. They were hidden in normal neighborhoods, or whatever passed for normal anymore; in nondescript houses with barred windows and locked doors, beat up cars in the driveway that came and went all day as the parolees looked for work that didn’t exist, or officials to bribe to be released in full, or a crooked off duty guard to unlock the ankle monitor and let them disappear. What was the harm in letting them go? The world was probably less forgiving, a punishment unto itself whether you were deserving of it or not.

 

Even the good, God fearing, corn fed citizens of the straight and narrow were made to suffer as the chasm between rich and poor grew deeper and wider with the last bridges holding society together slowly burning away. Good people from good families were forced to make terrible choices and the black market inventory grew by leaps and bounds. In order to avoid it, some of us had to tell our families goodbye…or at least leave a note indicating as much. Some of us had to go on the run to keep from being sacrificed, quite literally, to the almighty dollar.

 

I was lucky enough to make a few friends once I was out on the streets. Even though I was young and very inexperienced I found work as a runner. A fairly good looking middle class white girl rarely got a second look from what was left of the police force. Any time I was questioned I simply smiled and played dumb, asking what exactly a half way house was, or what they meant by contraband. Sometimes a bright smile and a fake phone number were all that were needed to get out of a sticky situation and before long I was on my way. I was paid under the table to deliver “personal goods”. I had connections who could get me special foods, smokes and batteries, razors, condoms and other supplies to a halfway house just north of New Rochelle every Wednesday which was my long standing gig. My employer gave me a list and a cash advance in a sealed up envelope and I did my best to fulfill it, taking a percentage off the top as pay. Rose, the part time nurse at the house was responsible for finding the more hardcore medications, but I had built up something of a budding reputation of being able to sniff out the rest. Most of the things had to be found through special channels, bought from hoarders and preppers that sold their stores for coins that people were smelting themselves from their old gold jewelry, a new underground currency that they people developed without the help of the government. There was nothing left for the people to rely on.

 

When I wasn’t working I was a squatter, sleeping on the floors of friends or sometimes strangers. I had a backpack that carried three changes of clothes, toiletries, a thin blanket; I could always pick up and move. On rare occasions I found an abandoned home or apartment, vacant but not yet stripped to the studs. If I could I would sleep for a week on a broken down couch, eating canned soup and looking for loot and I would call it luxury, smiling to myself when I could hear rain pounding against the roof, cuddling up in my very own shelter. Rose tried to find me work, “honest work”, or at the very least a place to live permanently, but deep down I think I liked being nomadic, untethered, free. Or at the very least that’s what I told myself. For the first few months it was almost like an adventure, like living in one of those world building video games, taking inventory, finding supplies, building ‘a base’. But homelessness gets old very fast, having no roots, no one to talk to when the night got too dark, no one to get me a cool washcloth when I felt sick. Eventually it got lonely. But the truth was I rarely went hungry and I knew enough people that when it got cold I didn’t suffer. It wasn’t strange to be homeless, a traveler, a street person, it wasn’t something to be pitied. It was just what the world had turned into.

 

Cell towers still worked, even though most people only used burner phones anymore. I had a device that I paid for every month. My work depended on it. It could text, I could do research on the cached pages of the oldweb. The internet still existed, but no one could depend on it anymore, seeing as it was owned and distributed by three companies who gave you the information they wanted, the options they chose, the entertainment they picked. Everything was scrubbed clean and presented in a shiny, simple format for our own good, just like life at The Farm. My parents told me how life couldn’t be LIVED without the internet when they were younger. Now it was mostly a historical resource; how to’s and maps, a capsule of what life could be like again…someday. If you believed what they told you.

 

Life was busy, busy with the business of surviving, so there was no time to feel the loneliness. There was no time to remember that I was twenty-two and I’d never been in love, never had someone waiting for me to come home, waiting to hear my voice. I never had someone to depend on, and those depending on me were only waiting for the things that I brought them, it didn’t matter who the messenger was. Those thoughts, those regrets, they passed through my mind like little clouds racing in front of the sun, darkening everything for a few moments, but then gone when I had to pack up and hit the road again. Love was a rarity. Sex was a luxury. Maybe one day there’d be time for it, but like everyone else, surviving came first. Besides, no one really wanted to get it on in the back of a burnt out van anyway.

 

The day it all happened I was getting ready to deliver a box of supplies. It was an unusually huge order – cases of energy bars, liquor, cartons of cigarettes, batteries, radios, things that were expensive and in high demand. I did my best to pack the stuff into two old rollerbag suitcases and started the two mile walk to the halfway house. The side streets I traveled were nearly reduced to gravel, nothing but potholes and puddles, cracked asphalt and patching that made my steps careful, my progress precarious. My phone vibrated in my pocket with a text from Rose.

 

“DONT. #EWVBT”

 

“Hittin the painkillers early today?” I sent back and kept walking.

 

My last contact had treated me to a cigarette and I lit it, smiling when I felt the lightheaded tobacco buzz send a shiver through me as I coughed out the smoke. Working for a halfway house I never dealt in drugs or contraband alcohol. The occasional cigarette was all I needed to give myself a little boost in the heat of the afternoon, sweating under my hoodie because it was easier to wear it than carry it. What I’d really have loved was a cold shower. On the days that it got too hot I would make the walk to the harbor and treat myself to a swim when the sun was going down. I knew the water was polluted, probably eating through my clothes, but it felt good. It was cool, and it rinsed the dust from my hair.

 

The house was two blocks off. There were two pick up trucks in the driveway. I’d never seen them there before and I wondered if there were new parolees moving in. The back of the dusty red pick up had three motorbikes and three or four plastic tubs bungee corded in place. In the distance I heard sirens. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen police in this neighborhood. Even at the house there were no guards, no patrols. They affixed ankle monitors to the guys and washed their hands of it. There wasn’t a budget for anything more.

 

The sirens got closer as I headed up the driveway. My phone vibrated again and I pulled it from my pocket just as the front door flew open, one of the more terrifying men, Snoke, filling the space.

 

“STAY AWAY”

 

The message said, and Snoke grabbed my arm and pulled me inside.

 

 

 

“What’s going on?” I said, once the door was closed, wrenching out of his grip. “Let go of me.”

 

I looked around and saw the four men of the halfway house and Rose. She looked terrified standing behind Finn, the parolee she’d secretly been seeing for the last couple of months. On the floor in front of the crew was her phone, shattered in a hundred pieces. The other two men were Nicholas and Hux. All of them were holding guns, guns that some other runner had gotten for them. The sirens were screaming outside the halfway house then started fading as they raced past. Still Snoke stood at the front door with his gun, keeping watch through the narrow window.

 

“Anyone with you? Following you? Waiting for you to come back? A ride?” He asked, not taking his eyes from the front yard.

 

“No. Who the hell would be with me?” I asked. I turned back to Rose, the only person there that I trusted. “What’s going on?”

Snoke turned and waved his gun at me, pointing towards the couch.

 

“OK, you and Rose sit down. We’re going over the plan again now that our shit is here.”

 

He pulled the roller bags from my hands and he and Nicholas unzipped them, pulling out the water and canned food, three phones and heavy blister packs of double A batteries.

 

“Where’re the smokes?” Hux asked, getting right in my face as if I’d intentionally screwed him over. “We told you we needed cigarettes.”

 

“I couldn’t get them. You usually only ask for one pack a week. A carton is a different story and a lot more expensive.”

 

“Then you should have told me that and I would’ve gotten you the money,” he spat, kicking one of the bags aside.

 

Rose threaded her fingers into mine and squeezed.

 

“Leave her alone Hux,” she said. “Just tell us where we’re going and what you need Rey to do.”

 

“We don’t need her to do anything,” Snoke said, holding his hands up as an indication that we should all be calm. “If she wants she can come with us, as a courtesy for all the work she’s done for us.”

 

“Go with you where?” I asked, looking around at the state of the house, completely turned upside down, furniture moved, cabinets emptied, boxes packed full of food and clothes, blankets neatly folded and stacked up with pillows. They’d been planning this for a while and no one had uttered a word.

 

“Snoke’s family has nearly two square miles of land on Washington Island in Wisconsin,” Rose said. “It used to be a summer fishing camp and now it’s going to be our home. It’s our island now. His brother will meet us there and we can start over.”

 

“Washington Island? That sounds nice,” I said, eyeing the front door that the group had moved away from. Hux and Nicholas were gathering up boxes and Snoke was watching Rose explain what was going on.

 

“It’s in Northern Wisconsin. Up at the tip of Door County. The middle of nowhere to most people,” Snoke said. “But we’ve got a boat to get us there and we can grow food and keep animals…” he trailed off, looking over his shoulder. “A regular fucking Utopia.”

 

I nodded slowly, pulling my hand free from Rose’s on the pretense of itching my ear. If I could get them off on a tangent about their plan I could get to the door, and if I could get outside I was home free. They wouldn’t fire a gun out in the middle of the front yard, it would draw far too much attention.

 

“And you have electricity there? Plumbing?” I asked, feigning interest. “I’m not going anywhere without hot water or a flushing toilet.”

 

Hux shot me a look of disdain, as if I were some sort of princess for desiring these basic necessities. Snoke took the bait and started describing the camp; the five cabins that had built in bunks and operating bathrooms, the big lodge building with a big stone fireplace where everyone could gather. There were tanks of gasoline to run the two generators, and boats to go to and from the island for supplies. He very nearly went dreamy while talking about it and I almost felt guilty at having no interest in being a part of it. But as soon as he took three steps away from the door I jumped.

 

I grabbed my backpack from beside the couch and ran for the door. Before I could open it up enough to squeeze out, Hux grabbed me around the waist, pulling me back against his chest and back into the house.

 

“Where you going, princess?” He hissed in my ear, throwing me to the floor in front of Snoke. “I don’t trust her. We can’t let her go. She’ll get a pay off from the cops for turning us in.”

 

“Bullshit!” I yelled, “I’ve never taken a payoff from a cop. And I have no reason to turn you in. Just let me go.”

 

“No,” Snoke said, sighing, rubbing his temple with the barrel of his gun. “I see now that we _can’t_ let you go.”

 

 

I sat in the pick up truck smashed between Snoke driving and Hux smoking a cigarette so furiously and quickly that I was sure he was going to puke. If he didn’t I would from the combination of exhaust, smoke and nerves. Both of them had pistols resting in their laps, pointed in my direction like bookends so I said nothing, made no complaints. There were several stops to make, things to pick up from shadowy people in garages or in cars pulled over in parking lots; bigger, better runners than I, guys or gangs willing to deal in higher level supplies. Most things were in plastic tubs, but I did notice that someone gave Rose a huge medical kit and white boxes filled with prescription medications and first aid supplies, bandages, syringes, hardcore painkillers, sedatives and antibiotics. The other truck followed close behind as we headed south and west, deeper into the city, sort of like breaking through the rings of hell until we settled on number four or so, not quite to the giant skyscrapers of Manhattan where the last remaining percentage of comfortable and wealthy white people lived, but to a much more bustling and frankly frightening part of town.

 

The sun was going down, the sky turning pink purple off to the west. The streets, once lined with charming little boutiques and coffee shops, art galleries and playgrounds, were littered with broken down cars and motorcycles, people huddled around making clandestine transactions for anything from food to drugs to sex. Tents were set up in parking lots and on sidewalks, makeshift homesteads in every available space. Where grass used to grow it was just dirt and broken concrete. Every third or fourth building was burnt out, sealed up with old sheets or duct tape and plastic. Dogs ran around in the streets, skinny and panting in the late summer heat. We squealed to a stop outside a brownstone in relatively good shape; at least all of its windows were intact and lined with blackout curtains.

 

Hux pulled me from the car and held me by the elbow, dragging me up the stoop to the front door.

 

“Just a small piece of business before we head west,” he said. “Keep your mouth shut, don’t touch anything and don’t ask questions.”

 

We walked up a few flights of stairs to an apartment on the third floor. Rose shot me a look of…apology? Warning? Fear? I couldn’t make it out before the door opened and an angry…giant man filled in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, face set in an unwelcoming sneer, one dark eyebrow cocked up as if we couldn’t possibly be a bigger inconvenience. There was something…a darkness about him that scared me more than the men holding guns to my ribs; a silence that indicated he was a rung up on the ladder, that while he not only towered over Snoke physically, he could intimidate him in other ways. There was a hard, weathered look to his dark eyes and inky hair, something wild. Of course he had a gun too, tucked into the front of his low slung jeans. He offered no greeting, didn’t step away from the door, just stared, his eyes sharp and alert, nearly black in the low light. Finally Snoke stepped forward.

 

“Kylo,” he said. “We told you we’d be by.”

 

“You didn’t tell me you’d bring the whole Salvation Army though, did you?”

 

Kylo scanned the group and his eyes stopped on me, his eyebrow twitching up just a bit more. I amused him somehow. I could see the pulse pounding tension in his squared jaw as I tried to focus on the pale scar that cut through his eyebrow down to his cheek. When he spoke again, he was still staring at me, his locked gaze stealing the air from my lungs, like if I moved or looked away from him he’d rip me to shreds, a velociraptor who can’t see you unless you’re moving.

 

“Get the fuck inside,” he said, stepping out of the doorway, “before you draw the attention of twenty more people.”

 


	2. Supplier

* * *

The apartment was cooled by three air conditioning units; something I hadn’t felt in years. He had two mismatched couches, a beaten up old leather recliner chair and a fairly new model flatscreen television that was playing a movie from the turn of the century; he’d frozen the screen on a man throwing a punch into the face of another and it made for a strange, flickering background to our conversation. A few built in bookshelves held locked metal boxes and little stacks of faded cardboard boxes reading “REM .22” “GL 9MM” “.38 SUPER” “WIN .410”. On the coffee table between the couches were empty bottles of beer, notebooks and torn envelopes, an old mug of coffee, a scattering of pills and a smoldering joint that perfumed the air with its thick, cloying smoke.

 

“Sit down,” Kylo said, not cracking even a hint of a smile. It sounded more like an order than an offer but he followed it with, “take a drag if you want. Mi casa su casa and all that shit.”

 

Rose and I sat on the couch and she took my hand again, trying to lace her fingers into mine. She was treating me like I was some sort of naïve child shaking in my boots and not a grown adult only three years younger than her and well aware that this was a serious situation. As if she hadn’t put me in it. I didn’t need some nurse and her bullshit bedside manner. She knew this plan had been in the works for weeks and never thought to warn me that along with my delivery I’d be taken hostage. She never thought how I’d react to being dragged along into a plan…again…without my consent. So hand-holding was a little too little too late. I pulled away from her grip, doing my best to focus on the anger I had for her in order to keep me alert. Kylo watched me do it and I saw the corner of his mouth quirk up for a second before he turned to talk to the men from the halfway house.

 

“So you’re finally making the big move out west, eh young man?” He said, sitting on the arm of the couch with a beer. A cold beer with condensation dripping down the side. I hadn’t seen such a sight since I was a child at my grandparent’s house. “You come to invite me along?”

 

“No,” Snoke said, immediately and with definite finality. “We came because we need a couple of guns and ammunition. Nothing too crazy and mostly for hunting.”

 

Kylo nodded, looking around the room at his inventory, tapping the heavy silver ring on his thumb against the side of the beer bottle as he thought.

 

“If you’ve got the money, I can hook you up. Nothing fancy since I assume you’re leaving tonight.”

 

“Guns are fine,” Hux said, charging into the conversation. “But that’s not the reason we’re here. Come on Snoke, fucking get to it.”

 

Kylo snorted at Hux’s attempt to be in charge of…anything…but Snoke looked like he agreed with his teammate.

 

“We’ve got all the supplies we need and we won’t be supervised until next Thursday, which gives us plenty of time to leave the state,” Snoke said. “The last step is the ankle monitors.”

 

I’d completely forgotten. They were all wearing the armored anklets that would set off alarms if they were out past a certain hour or if they left a thirty-mile perimeter. An old clock on the wall indicated that they had two hours to get back to the house before it would send a call in to the prison.

 

Kylo nodded again, rubbing a hand over his scruff covered cheeks. He was wearing a gray t-shirt that pulled taut across his broad chest and low slung jeans that were ripped and faded, covered with smudges of oil and dirt. While Snoke explained their curfew and the location of the halfway house, Kylo pulled the joint out of the ashtray and relit it, letting it dangle between his pursed lips when he talked.

 

“What kind are they?” He said, moving to rummage through a plastic crate on the floor. “The new armored neoprene ones or the old plastic shit?” He held up samples of unused ankle cuffs, hanging open, lifeless, then the remotes or companion wrist monitors that triggered them. “It makes a difference on who I call and how much it’ll cost you.”

 

“Call? What do you mean call? You told us you could do it yourself,” Hux spat. He was like a mad weasel, flying off the handle at the slightest provocation. I’d never felt comfortable around him, made a special point of never looking him in the eye. But Kylo simply stared, his mouth in a deep frown that shut Hux up in an instant.

 

“I told _Snoke_ that I could get it done. I didn’t say shit about doing it myself. So fucking calm yourself and tell me what you’re wearing.”

 

It fell into place just then that they had all been inside together, and where I thought Snoke was the crew leader, it was obvious now that the dynamic had been far different when they were in prison. Snoke lifted the cuff of his jeans and showed the equipment, registering a low impressed whistle from Kylo.

 

“They must really want to keep these guys around,” he said, looking over his shoulder at Rose and me with a lopsided grin. Then, shaking his head and turning back to Snoke he shrugged. “I can’t take those off here, friend. I’m going to have to call somebody.”

 

Hux all but growled but Snoke quickly quieted him with a hand on his shoulder and while the men continued their conversation about technological details and perimeters and curfews I felt my head start to swim. I’d been up for nearly thirty-six hours and I hadn’t eaten in at least eighteen. The thin, sweet smelling serpent of pot smoke started a headache pounding in the corner of my eye and I would have killed someone for a glass of water.

 

“You OK, Schatzi?”

 

I looked up to find everyone staring at me, but it was Kylo who had asked the question. He stepped out of the room for a moment and came back with an icy bottle of water, unscrewing the top before handing it over to me. I could feel him staring as I drank down half without stopping. When I tipped it back down and wiped the droplets from my lips he took the bottle back and put it on the table. Under his breath I could hear him mutter,

 

“Good girl.”

 

“I’m just…I’m tired,” I said, looking over at Hux, who had warned me not to make any trouble.

 

“Let the girls take a break,” Kylo said, exhaling a stream of smoke over our heads. “They can take a few drags, go lay down and you guys can head back to the house. I’ll send my guy over and he’ll have them off before morning.”

 

The crew looked at each other, at us, at Kylo.

 

“To put it more clearly…it’s collateral,” Kylo said, rolling his eyes. “Once you have the monitors off you come back, pay me, you get your hostages back.”

 

“We’re not hostages,” Rose said, nearly laughing, even though it was exactly what both of us were and if she believed any different she was living in a dream world.  

 

“Hostage or not, your girl’s about to pass out,” Kylo said, pointing at me with his beer bottle. “You gonna drag her dead weight around all night?”

 

Right on cue the room started to waver as if I’d fell into a pool. The water he gave me tasted so good, and it had been ice cold. The couch was deep and soft and before I could give any protest or even try to fight it, everything went dark.

 

 

KYLO

 

She didn’t fit in with them. She didn’t fit in with me, with the city, any of it. She had the appearance of someone who wanted so desperately to be some sort of street warrior but was too clean, too soft and light to make the grade, the look of someone relatively new to the streets, new enough to see it as an adventure rather than a gauntlet. And as soon as I saw her I wanted to touch her skin. It was peachy pale, healthy, not like the whores and addicts and fed up monsters that prowled the streets in my neighborhood. As soon as she saw me she was terrified. It was something I was used to, usually played it up in fact, to keep the scales tipped in my favor. I was tall, tattoo covered, and the scar that ran the length of my cheek and through my eyebrow didn’t do much for my modeling career. Yet even though she was afraid (pupils dilated, mouth fallen open, her arms wrapped tight around her little torso) she held my stare when I looked at her like she didn’t want to back down, wouldn’t blink first, even if it would hurt.

 

All of that bullshit emotional stuff aside, she also looked familiar to me. There was something in that blank forward stare that I’d seen before and I needed to find out why. So when I saw she was tired, that the pot smoke was making her woozy; when I saw that she was equally afraid of Snoke and Hux, I drugged her. Knowing she was probably thirsty, I dropped half a Xanax in the water bottle and then pretended to be a gentleman by opening it for her. Within fifteen minutes she was half way gone, so soft and pretty curled up on my couch.

 

The dark haired girl, the little spitfire one, rushed over to Finn and grabbed his arm.

 

“I don’t want to stay here. Don’t make me stay here with him.”

 

“Someone’s staying here,” I said. “And it’s someone without a monitor. Look, she’s sound asleep. I was just watching a movie. We’ll sit here and I’ll call my guy and this will be over in the morning, got it? What’s the problem Snoke, you think I’m gonna hurt her?”

 

I smiled at my old prison mate but he just shook his head, his mouth a tight, angry line. I pushed buttons. I was good at it. Rose was trying talk to her, slapping her lightly on the face in an attempt to wake her, but she was good and tired, her eyes fluttering around under the lids, waving Rose’s hand away like a pesky fly.

 

“Maybe she took something,” I said, flicking my eyes over to Snoke, offering him a knowing smile.

 

Rose jumped up from the couch and did her best to get in my face, shaking her finger at me, her cheeks flushed red with anger.

 

“If you touch her…if you hurt her, at all…I’ll find out and then I’ll find you. You’ll never --.”

 

Finn touched her shoulder and wisely pulled her back, whispering in her ear to settle down.

 

“Pretty mouthy for someone who’s boyfriend needs a fucking favor,” I said, blowing smoke above her head. “How about you worry about yourself princess, I’ll take care of…”

 

“Rey,” Snoke said, stepping in close. “Her name is Rey, and you’d better watch yourself.”

 

Rey. That name sounded familiar too, but I was sure that I’d never met her. She was memorable.

 

Once they left I scooped her into my arms and carried her to the bedroom, laying her down on her back. She wore heavy, leather work boots that I unlaced and threw aside. They looked so out of place on her slim legs. Briefly I toyed with the idea of stripping her, of stripping me, of climbing into bed and fucking her while she was unconscious. But just as I was unbuckling my belt she whimpered. She twisted and sighed, stretching her legs out and turning onto her side. I reached for her ponytail and pulled out the elastic, running my fingers through her honey colored hair that smelled like fruit, some clean, girly shampoo. The sound she made as my fingers touched her scalp made my dick jump, hardening almost instantly. But I couldn’t do it. Not like that.

 

Instead I ran my fingers over her open mouth to feel her breath on my hand. I pulled down on her lower lip to touch the seashell pink on the inside, warm and wet. She murmured something I couldn’t understand and curled up, her hands folded under her head. I pulled a sheet up to cover her and left the room.

 

I was a bad guy. But there were lines I didn’t cross.


	3. Collateral

She’d brought in a black backpack that surprised me with its weight. It had to be stuffed with more than thirty pounds of supplies. There were the usual girly things; underwear, tampons, deodorant, toothpaste, hairbrush and hair ties all packed in a zippered pouch. But there were other things too that spoke to her life as a runner; burner phones, notebooks, pencils hewn to a point with a pocket knife, lighter and a crumpled pack of cigarettes. I found the pocket knife, her weak excuse for a taser and pepper spray and wisely hid them elsewhere. There was an old wallet holding fifty bucks in paper money and three gold coins. She had vitamin injections sealed in plastic, protein bars and chocolate, an extra pair of jeans, some socks and t-shirts and a picture folded in half. It was a casual portrait of a family standing near the Statue of Liberty, back when you could go up in it, back when there were vacations. Back when there were families. The smiling parents were hers, I assumed, along with a young boy and two even younger girls. At the very bottom of her bag was a lanyard with her state ID. Rey Gilchrist. Birthday November 13, 2005. Her last name rang another bell and I went to my laptop to read the state approved news of the day. For the most part the internet was worthless to anyone who couldn’t pay for it. The “free” aspects of the web were carefully filtered, curated and censored to provide us with only the safest, mildest news, designed to cultivate calm and mitigate the near weekly riots and protests that took place in the larger cities.

Sure enough, her name was on the front page, along with her picture. I smiled and tucked her ID into my back pocket for safekeeping. She wasn’t just a pretty face after all. Just as I’d suspected, she was a gold mine.

Snoke contacted me an hour or so later. They were back at the halfway house and wanted to know when Johnny T would be over.

“How’s Rey?” Snoke asked, a note of worry in his voice.

Rey, such a unique name. Most people had gone back to the classics when things started crumbling. It was like making a wish; a wish that we could all go back to how things were…that we could recreate it. But instead it all got worse. And yet here she was like an oasis, clean and untouched, like fresh water.

“Still asleep. Whatever did you do to that girl?” I asked, laughing. Snoke didn’t return it. “Listen, Johnny called me and he needs ten grand to do four ankles,” I lied. Johnny would have done it for three bags of hash and a hot meal. But I needed leverage and I knew that for three convicts in a halfway house cash was in short supply.

“What the fuck, Kylo? You said you were sure he’d do it for under a grand! You know I don’t have that.”

“What a shame, man,” I said, throwing back a shot of whiskey. “Tell you what, I have five grand and I could make a deal with him since he owes me a favor.”

Everyone owed me favors. Favors, money, supplies, their life. It was how I got around in this wasteland of a city. It’s how I kept the electricity on, the hot water running, broadcast television channels and even access to the oldweb. I needed those things to run my business, and when someone needed something done or something acquired, I made sure they gave me the tools to do it. When money is scarce you find other currencies; sometimes in the strangest of places.

“I don’t have five grand either, Ren. So why don't you just tell me your _deal_?” He asked, the word spitting through the phone like venom. He knew I was up to something. “What do you want?”

“Rey," I said, as if it were completely obvious.

The line went silent. I thought he hung up, but after a moment or two he sighed, heavy and long. There was a chance he would shoot me down immediately, climb into his pick up truck and come play white knight redeemer. We would fight, I would level him and I’d end up with the girl anyway, but it would be best to save the energy. He was one of those convicts who really regretted his crimes, who plead guilty and meant it, who intended to turn his life around when he was free. But I guess he got tired of waiting for the end of his sentence to roll around. His impatience was my only chance.

“What did you do to her?”

“Nothing yet. I told you she’s still asleep,” I said, lighting a cigarette. “Oh no wait, I took her shoes off.”

Another sigh and I knew I had him. He needed those ankle bracelets off in order to get out of town, and the rest of the crew was counting on him. There were times to be the hero and times when survival made you selfish. There were a lot fewer heroes in the world these days and far too many who successfully blurred the line.

“I promise to take good care of her,” I said, and when he didn’t respond right away I realized he might have thought I was being sarcastic. I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t want to torture her. I just wanted…her, for a variety of reasons, some of which I’m sure Snoke would be interested in himself if he did a bit of research. “Snoke. I mean it. I’m not going to hold her hostage…I just want –“

“I know what you want, Kylo. Fine. We’ll leave Rey behind. I’m sure I’ll have to sedate Rose after she throws a fucking fit about it, but I’ll…I’ll tell her you two hit it off and she _wants_ to stay with you.”

The thought of it raised the hair on my arms. The thought of her wanting me, coming to me willingly, maybe begging…

“I’ll call Johnny T. Let me know if you need anything else for your adventure, friend.”

He hung up without saying goodbye.

 

 

**REY**

 

I woke up in complete confusion under blankets in a cool, soft bed in a dark room; the sickly blue white glow of the solar city streetlights diffused through the dirty window. I was fully dressed but my shoes were off, my hair down. I remembered falling asleep, drinking the water, stretching out on the couch. A low, throaty laugh woke me completely, my eyes wide. The bedroom door was open just a bit, giving me a line of sight to the front room of the gun dealer’s apartment. Kylo. He’d put me in the bed.

From the darkened room I watched him watch television, another old movie, with his legs stretched out on the coffee table, a cigarette dangling from his long fingers. On the screen a shirtless man held a woman against the wall, his hand around her throat as he kissed her. The phone rang and he stood, pacing the room while he spoke in low tones, running a hand through his wild, dark hair as he conducted business, opening and closing boxes, negotiating prices, arranging meetings. Everything about him was…languid. His limbs were lean and lanky and he moved around the space like a shark, never standing still, slowly wandering from wall to wall, running his fingers over boxes and shelves. It wasn’t a nervous energy, I could tell by the low tone of his voice and the occasional laugh that he had everything under control. Once he ended the call he made his way over to the bedroom door. I froze, closing my eyes halfway so I could see him through my lashes. He pushed the door open another inch and looked in on me for a long minute, his head tipped to the side.

“Still sleeping?” He asked, his voice low and velvety. I felt goosebumps rise on my arms, but whether it was fear or something else I couldn’t say.

He closed the door and I let out a long breath, staring at the ceiling, my heart hammering behind my ribs. Where was Rose? When were they coming back? When would I get out of here? What was going to happen before then? I remembered the word collateral. They’d brought me here as a trade, as a placeholder while they negotiated their own freedom. And all the while Rose sat there holding my hand as if it were no big deal, just a favor she needed done so she could run off into the wilderness and fuck her precious Finn. This was what sex did. It blinded you, made you lose focus, lose brain cells. My eyes stung with tears that I quickly sniffed up, wiping my cheeks dry. The blankets felt heavy but welcoming, like a cocoon tight around my arms. Just thinking about what had happened and what was going to happen next was overwhelming, but before I could make a plan to do anything, to scream or to get up and jump out the window, I felt myself inexplicably exhausted again…like a heavy hook pulling me down.

 

I was roused by the squeak of the bedroom door opening. He stepped into the darkness wearing only a pair of black boxer briefs, his hair damp from a shower, pushed back from his face. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken a hot shower, or a long, soaking bubble bath like I did almost every night as a kid. Even from across the room he smelled like a fresh forest, cedar and rain. I was self-conscious, knowing I probably looked and smelled terrible, although I wasn’t sure why I cared. He stood at the end of the bed and stared down at me as he unbuckled the thick strap of the silver watch he was wearing and set it on the dresser. The cool blue light from the street shone a highlight on the angle of his jaw and I could see a tiny upturn of his lips…amusement. I waited for him to pounce, to pin me down, clawing at me. That’s what he wanted, wasn’t it? Why was he waiting for me to wake up?

“What’s going on?” I asked, quietly, my voice shaking. “Where are they? What are you doing?”

“Shhhh,” he said, the sound low and long as he walked around to the other side of the double bed, slithering in beside me like a serpent, the mattress shifting under the weight of his huge body. “It’s late.”

He pulled the covers back and lay down, heat radiating off his skin as he wrapped an arm around me, pulling me against his chest, clutching me to him like a security blanket. I twisted and squirmed trying to free myself, but his grip only got tighter.

“Stop it, Schatzi,” he said, his lips hot against my neck. “I’m tired.”

“No. Let go of me. Let me up.”

In a second he had me flipped on my back, his strong thighs trapping my hips, my hands pinned over my head. A shock of his damp hair hung in front of his face as he glared down at me, his eyes a deep and endless black in the faint, milky light.

“You’ve got three choices, Schatzi,” he growled. “Fuck, fight or shut up. Pick one or I will.”

To make himself perfectly clear he rolled his hips against mine, pressing my pelvis into the mattress. I stopped struggling, stopped breathing, and he moved off, sliding back down beside me. He loosened his grip, but still held me tight to his chest, hooking one leg around my ankle, his nose buried in my hair. Once I was sure he wasn’t going to go any further, that he was truly there to sleep I asked him;

“When are they coming back for me?”

He twisted and sighed and got comfortable, pressing all of his body against me. And as he pulled me close enough to feel the length and hard thickness of what he _really_ wanted from me, his breath was hot against my skin.

“Oh kitten," he sighed, his fingers tickling my stomach beneath my thin t-shirt. "...They aren’t.”

He was asleep in moments, his breathing deep and even, his heartbeat a calm rhythm against my back. And although he was silent I was shot through with terror, staring wide-eyed out the open bedroom door into the darkened apartment.

They weren’t coming back for me. That wasn’t collateral. Had that been their real plan all along? To trade me? To sell me? Had they told him what I was actually worth? Had they found out the truth? Had Rose known that I’d never see her again, that I wasn’t going with them to Snoke’s Island? A tear slid over my temple and I moved my hand to wipe it away, making Kylo stir, grinding his hips into mine, nuzzling against my neck. As my eyelids grew heavy I thought back to the afternoon, to the water he’d given me and the answer came at me in a rush. That was why I was so weak, so sleepy, unable to fight him. That was why I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t figure out how to get away, why the blankets felt heavy, the darkness so oppressive. He’d drugged me. Sleep crawled over my muscles and I told myself it would be different in the morning. It would be different when I had a clear head, when the drugs were out of my system.

I told myself that in the morning I would fight.

 

I woke up before him. And although it was day, a thunderstorm had rolled in during the night, turning the light in the room a dusky gray through the clouds. In the old days whether changed several times a day. You could wake up to a thunderstorm and have a sunny picnic in the afternoon; but these days when the storms came they lasted for hours, occasionally for days, sheets of rain and non-stop rolling thunder. It wasn’t safe to live near the rivers anymore or build a house on the coast as a single storm could flood the streets, wash out the trees, change the landscape. I could tell by the darkness that this wasn’t a passing shower and the smell of wet, hot asphalt rising from the streets and seeping through the windows told me we were in for the long haul. The air was heavy and I pulled the sheet off to let cool air roll over my skin.

I must have turned in my sleep because I woke up facing him; his long, lean body stretched out on its side, one arm tucked beneath his pillow. He looked so much softer, much less intimidating in sleep. The hard angle of his jaw was softened with his mouth fallen open. His usually furrowed brow was smooth, relaxed. The scar through his eyebrow and cheek ran down to the edge of his full lips, disappearing between them. The sheet was tangled around his waist and in the dim light I could see his torso covered in crude black tattoos and a constellation of scars; pale straight lines and jagged cuts that looked like streaks of lightning, starbursts reminiscent of gunshots. The design on his left shoulder was composed of thick curving lines curling to tiny points, inky flames engulfing his arm. On his chest were what I assumed to be coded symbols: letters and numbers, five pointed stars, crude skulls and sharp arrows. On his left bicep was a word written in bold Cyrillic letters: ястреб. The letters were ornate and seriffed and it was everything in me not to touch them.  


Once the States started to tumble downhill, organized crime from every nation swooped in to take control of the cities – the prostitution, the drug trade, weapons, construction. Beyond the regular mafia strongholds new fields started to pop up, ripe for the picking by wealthy crime families – medical supplies, forged identification, counterfeit money, transportation away from the cities, promises of a better life in a greener place with fresh air and clean water not unlike Snoke’s dream of an island Utopia. New York had become a hub for alternate identities, false passports, licenses, birth certificates and name changes. And it wasn’t just the poor or the sick or the desperate who wanted it. The rich used alternate identities to go out among the poor, to buy slaves, to hide their drug habits, to swindle the last dollars that they hadn’t managed to hoard up before the drop. I wondered if that was how Kylo had all the money and supplies and comforts of home.

His other arm was wrapped around my waist loosely, but when I tried to get up, to slide out from under this grip, his eyes snapped open and he moved to grab the back of my thigh, pulling us together, his hardened cock rubbing against my belly, my face buried in his chest.

“Morning, Schatzi,” he said, his voice gravelly with sleep. I felt a frisson of something run under my skin, down my spine. There was an unexpected intimacy that came with waking up beside someone, in their arms, no matter who they were.

I pushed away and broke out of his hold, but before I could get out of the room he'd jumped up and had one arm around my waist, yanking me backwards.

“Come on now, baby. You don’t need to run. There’s nowhere _to_ run. It’s pouring outside. And it’s that hot, stinging, stinking city rain. A good excuse to stay in bed all day.”

His hand ran under my shirt, up over my ribs and I kicked backwards, missing the intended mark and hitting him in the thigh. It must have hurt enough though, because he threw me to the ground, hard enough that I hit my head on the wall.

“Fuck! What was that for?” He growled, staring down at me.

I curled into myself, my arms around my knees, the back of my head stinging and throbbing with pain. When he told me to get up I didn’t move, so he crouched down and grabbed my hair, wrenching my head back to look at him, his voice steady, eyes locked on mine.

“I’m losing my patience. Fast. Get. Up.”

There was something in his eyes that let me know he would have no problem with beating me senseless, leaving marks, a little collection of scars to match his own. So I scrambled to my feet and he spun me around, holding tight to both of my arms, walking me out of the bedroom to sit down on the couch. He grabbed his gun from the coffeetable and tucked it into the waistband of his underwear. I sat stock still, my eyes surveying the room for some way out. Before speaking he paced around the room, gathering his wits, one hand on his hip.

“Completely unnecessary!” He yelled. “Did I hurt you last night? Make you do anything you didn’t want to?”

He stalked around the couch like a lion, his hair a wild mane around his face, cheeks dark with scruff, a toothpick flicking between his closed lips like the luring tongue of a lizard. When he bent down to look at me I shot my gaze over his shoulder, unwilling to look into his eyes, so he grabbed my jaw in one hand, forcing my face back to look at him.

“Listen to me Rey. You’ve got to start exercising a little self-preservation here. I paid a good price and now you’re mine. The End. If you behave yourself, if you stop kicking and flailing and screaming then maybe we’ll get somewhere you and I, but if you don’t stop with this hysterical bullshit I’ll tie you down so tight you won’t be able to move a finger.” I felt tears start to sting on the rims of my eyelids. He was crazy, unstable. “And then I’ll do whatever I want…for as long as I want.” He smiled, lopsided, winking along with it as his thumb ran over my lower lip. His moods swung like a metronome and I wasn’t sure how far it went. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet, almost soothing. “Besides baby, where are you going to go? Your crew? The halfway house boys?” He stroked my hair, pushing it back behind my ears, smoothing it down my back like primping a doll for display. “They’re long gone and they didn’t want you anyway. Why do you think they wouldn’t tell you why you needed to come with them? They know who I am. Snoke knows who I am, what I’ve done, how ‘gentlemanly’ I am. Why do you think they so easily agreed to let you ‘rest’ here?”

It made sense that they’d intended to use me as payment, as bait for what they needed. But he paid a price? He bought me like I was a… I couldn’t believe it. I shook my head.

“That’s not true. I don’t believe it,” I said, the tears running down my cheeks. “They wouldn’t leave me here. Collateral means they’ll come back for me.”

He wiped the tears from my cheek with his thumb, his lower lip pouting out dramatically and for a moment I could see his face soften, a bit of sympathy? Empathy? He let go of me and stepped back, looking out the front window of the apartment at the sheets of rain battering the window.

“Then you should wait here, right? If they’re coming back for you, they’ll come back here.”

I wasn’t sure what his plan was, but I nodded all the same, if only to hear more.

“I have work to do. Phone calls to make, orders to fill. You stay here, stay quiet and out of my hair and wait for your friends,” he said. “And if they don’t come by sundown?” He knelt in front of me, spreading my knees apart and wedging himself in between my thighs, holding my face in his hands, our lips a breath apart. “That means you’re forgotten collateral; and we can celebrate just how wrong you were.”

He flicked his tongue over my closed mouth before I could wrench myself away. I looked out the window at the storm and glanced around at the cool, comfortable apartment. Before I could agree to his plan Kylo was already on a phone call to someone but keeping his eyes on me as they discussed some sort of drop off. So I sat and watched the rain, and the door, and the beast on the phone and I waited for the storm to end.

 

For at least an hour, he never stopped moving. Phone call after phone call, searching through and sorting out packages of ammo, counting out pills and patches, burner phones, charging sets, even batteries. Someone knocked on the front door but by the time he answered it they were gone, only a thick white envelope on the floor. I watched as he counted out the bills inside, 20, 40, 60…the messenger had left him three hundred dollars; more cash than I’d seen in months.

“Are you hungry?” He asked, when he noticed me staring at the money. “I have some energy bars.” He walked into the small galley kitchen and came back with another frosty cold bottle of water. “You’re thirsty though, I’m sure. Xanax will do that.”

He held the bottle out and I shrunk away from it.

“It’s clean, ‘fraidy cat,” he said, opening it and drinking half the bottle himself. “Here.”

He held it out again, a few drops of water falling from his wet lips. I took the bottle and drank it eagerly, nearly groaning at the clear, clean taste, the cold liquid splashing into my empty stomach. I drained it and looked up to find Kylo staring at me. Behind him I could see that the rain was starting to ebb, the sky a bit lighter. I sunk back into the couch.

“I’m tired,” I said. “I don’t have much energy lately.”

“You don’t take care of yourself. I can see that from here,” he said. “You’re pale, I can see your collarbones, your hair is dried out…you don’t get enough protein.”

“I’m not exactly rolling in cash and going out for porterhouse steaks doesn’t fit the budget. But honestly, if I had to put my finger on it, I think it’s probably the drugs people have been slipping into my drinks.”

He laughed at that. “Could be.”

The way he looked at me then, one eyebrow raised, made me feel like a child. He grabbed a half empty bottle from the shelf beside him, gulping the remaining beer in a matter of seconds. My eyes were locked on his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. I expected him to accuse me of “sassing” but instead he only shook his head and wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand.

“So what is it you do out there, Schatzi?”

“I’m a runner for Rose, well, Snoke I guess. The money comes from Snoke. Why do you call me that? Schatzi?"

He shrugged, standing up to pull his buzzing phone from his pocket.

“My grandma was from Munich,” he said, checking the caller I.D. and ignoring it. “She used to call her cats Schatzi. It’s a term of endearment.”

 

 

On the floor beside the couch, tucked beneath the ratty old end table, was a black nylon bag, smaller than my backpack (which he’d hidden somewhere along with my boots) but big enough to hold a few hundred dollars worth of supplies. So I got up to stretch while he paced the front hallway, yelling into the phone at someone attempting to screw him over. I walked to the window and stared out at the new line of dark clouds coming in from the North, quickly grabbing four packages of sealed tobacco and tucking them into my sweatshirt. Once I transferred them to the to the bag I asked if I could get a bottle of water from his fridge. He nodded and I made my way to the kitchen, where a plastic crate filled with prescription medications stood on the counter. A bottle of Cipro and a handful of clean syringes went into my pocket.

This was how I passed the afternoon; stealing here and there, taking the smallest, lightest, most easily hidden things that I could sell or trade once I got back up North. Burner phones, meds, food. And then I watched. I waited. I sat still long enough that I knew he wasn’t focused on me, too engrossed in his business. And when he moved to the window and turned his back to me I stood.

I grabbed the bag and I ran.


	4. Magpie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm leaving on vacation at the end of the week to the wilds of Canada :) I have to get a couple other WiPs updated, but maybe..maybe one more chap before I leave. Don't get used to this schedule :D

It wasn’t until I’d raced down the three short flights of stairs that I realized I had no shoes on. He’d taken my boots when I passed out and now I was out on the wet street in old gray socks. The temperature had fallen at least ten degrees and I sunk my hands into the pocket of my hoodie as I ran. After two blocks I turned and saw him, not quite running, just following me at a distance, holding his phone and smoking a cigarette, like an owner who lets their dog run free for a bit at the park knowing they won’t get too far. The streets were busy with people who didn’t like being pushed aside as I tried to blend into the crowd, zig-zagging through drug deals and groups of prostitutes working their beats. Without looking over my shoulder I ducked down an alley and crouched behind a dumpster. If he found me I could run. If he didn’t I could catch my breath for a second and formulate a plan.

The alley stank of piss and garbage, rotting food and dog shit. Under my soaking feet were broken bottles and wet newspaper but I crouched down as small as I could get and listened for footsteps.

“Hey,” a voice said. A small, shaking female voice approaching from the other side without me ever hearing a thing. “Hey, you got any?”

I turned and looked at a girl at least five years younger than me, gaunt and jaundiced, her eyes deep set in hollowed sockets, her thin, dark hair pulled into a messy knot. She wore cut off leggings and a black tank top with holes at the seams.

“What?”

“You got any? A shot?”

“N-no. Sorry,” I stood and backed away from her, down the alley, opposite from the street I’d came from.

“Don’t judge me bitch,” she spat, picking through the dumpster. “You’re not winning any prizes.”

I turned out of the alley onto a street much busier than the one Kylo lived on making it easier to melt into the crowd. The wind picked up and I could tell that the clouds were closing in again, bringing harder rain. Wet paper, empty cans tumbled by in the rising winds and even though I knew it would get colder, my hoodie was damp and heavy so I pulled it off and left it on an old rusted mailbox. The street lights came on and more people poured into the streets, looking for their fix, or a drink, or a screw. Men leered from every doorway and I found myself walking in circles as I crossed streets and made turns to avoid engaging anyone.

“Poor baby ain’t got no shoes,” a man said, leaning against the wall, a toothpick dangling from his lips. “I can get you some shoes.” He flashed an evil grin and I turned away from him, making my way to the next corner, a sharp pain digging into the bottom of my foot with each step.

The street signs were torn down and in the gathering dark I couldn’t tell if I was headed North or South. A group of prostitutes circled around me, hissing that I was in their territory, so I moved off in another direction, still unaware of where I was headed. But one thing I knew, Kylo wasn’t following me. Either I’d lost him or he didn’t care enough to go running through the rain for some bullshit collateral.

With each step it became harder and harder to catch my breath. A stitch in my side bent me in half with sudden pain and I leaned against a wall to steady myself, the bag of stolen items heavy against my back. I regretted not taking Kylo up on his offer of a protein bar. In a makeshift pocket on the waistband of my jeans was a tightly folded, now damp, five-dollar bill that I kept hidden for emergencies. I suspected it wouldn’t get me very far this deep into the city but I also had bullets and medicine to trade or sell so I looked for a functioning store and headed inside to get water and something to eat.

What I thought was a convenience store was some sort of makeshift hang out. The shelves of the old store stood, dust covered and mostly barren, some old boxes of candy and canned goods gave the illusion of a mini mart, but in the middle of the store were old folding tables and chairs. Four guys were playing cards and passing a skinny, crooked joint back and forth. Behind what used to be the cash register counter was a glass cabinet with a heavy padlock, holding cigarettes and liquor. Two men leaned against the counter and counted a pile of money. I could see a small black gun on the glass between them. At the sound of the front door opening they all looked up, glancing my way.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said, not taking a single step further into the scene. “I-I was just looking for water.”

I turned back towards the door and one of the guys stood up, his chair scraping against the cracked linoleum.

“You got money? I can get you water,” he said, pulling a small bottle out of a plastic cooler on the floor. “Or if you don’t have money, maybe something else?”

“I have…I have five dollars,” I said, holding out the crumpled bill. “I also have supplies. Supplies I can sell. I have bullets…”

The others laughed, but the guy with water snatched the bill from my hand and handed over the bottle, staring at me as I cracked the seal and drank it down. My throat burned with thirst, my stomach clenching at the first splash, rumbling with hunger. A guy behind the counter who had been staring since I walked in picked up his phone and walked to the back of the store. The card players went back to their game, turning their backs to me. But the man who had given me the water never took his eyes off me, arching one of his eyebrows up when I handed back the empty bottle, backing up towards the door.

"What’s your hurry sweetheart?” He smelled like sweat and stale pot and there was a gun in his waistband that I hadn’t seen before.

“Th—thanks. I’m, I have to-I’m meeting someone…”

“Oh OK. Well, you run along then,” he said following me and pushing the door open, looking down at the dirty, soaking socks on my feet. “Try not to get wet, princess.”

I stood out on the sidewalk, looking both ways down the rapidly darkening street. When I made my choice and turned left I felt a hand close around my arm.

“Actually, why don’t you stick around for a while?”

It was the guy from behind the counter, tall with stringy dark hair and a scraggly beard. He yanked me into the alleyway and pinned me against the brick building, caging me in with his long arms, the stink of his sweat making my eyes water.

“I told you I’m meeting someone. He’ll be here soon.” I glanced over my shoulder as if looking for my date.

“Oh really. Where’s he meeting you?”

“Just down at the corner. I have to go.”

He pressed against me and I could smell whiskey and tobacco, old spicy food.

“Down at the corner. The corner of what and what?”

I froze. He knew I was lost. He knew I didn’t belong in this neighborhood. I suddenly regretted ever leaving the apartment. I was tired and hungry and my feet were cold and sore. Something stung between my toes. The man smiled, showing yellowed and broken teeth.

“Please. Please don’t do this…” I said, twisting and bucking, trying to get away from him. He shoved his thigh between my legs, grinding up against me, his hot, sweaty hand slinking up under my wet t-shirt while his other hand closed around my throat, the tips of his grimy fingers brushing along my jaw. “Stop!” I yelled, pushing against his chest. “Get off me!”

And in that same instant he yelped in pain and tumbled down, falling to the ground clutching his side and standing in his place…was Kylo Ren. He held a short, blood covered blade that he quickly wiped off on his jeans and stuck back into his pocket. I slid down the wall to catch my breath, shuddering with tears that I’d been trying so hard to hold in. Kylo nudged me with his boot.

“C’mon. Get up.”

He towered over me, his hair wet, eyes glittering with slow simmering rage, his jaw clenched with tension. When I didn’t move he held out his hand and repeated himself, rain dripping off the ends of his dark hair.

“Get up. You’re not going to spend the night out here in the rain to prove some fucking point. You’ll be killed…and not quickly.”

I took his hand and he pulled me to my feet, taking the black bag off my shoulder. When he saw that I wasn’t wearing any shoes he rolled his eyes and easily swept me up into his arms, my hands clasped around his neck. I buried my face in his chest, shielding it from the storm, hiding from my own humiliation as he walked an easy five blocks back to his apartment building.

“Next time, stick with the devil you know, Schatzi,” was all he said as he made his way up the stairs.

 

**KYLO**

 

She weighed nothing and her skin was cold from the rain. Whether it was the weather or fear I could feel her trembling as we walked, her breath warming my skin through my wet t-shirt as she hid her face from me the whole time. I didn’t blame her for hiding. When I watched her bolt through the door something inside me snapped, a possessive anger that I didn’t know I had. She had no business daring to run away from me and I wanted to slap her silly, make her cry, knock her down and make her beg me for forgiveness. And on top of all of that, the fact that she’d stolen from me, taken my things and just ran out the door was enough to make me want to knock her senseless.

It was everything in me not to tell her that I’d warned her, to say that I told her that she wouldn’t last a day out there. CJ at the store had called me the minute she walked in because as I’d made my way out of the building to find her I’d spread the word that she’d gotten away from me. I made it sound like she was someone’s property, easily identifiable by her lack of shoes and generally confused appearance, bright hazel eyes and healthy pink cheeks. It would come as a shock to no one that I bought her in exchange for a couple of ankle monitors. In a city filled with traffickers and dealers, mules and smugglers, people became little more than assets passed between owners.

What I’d neglected to tell him was to keep his fucking hands off of her. And when I saw that asshole pinning her to the wall, when I saw how scared she was just having him that close to her, he’s lucky that I just nicked him, just enough to stain his clothes and hands with blood; just enough to scare him off. And yet instead of thanking me for saving her, she scrambled out of my arms and tried to push me back, tried to put distance between us as soon as she could stand.

“Let me go,” she snapped. “Don’t touch me, I’m fine.”

She was shaking like a leaf, her face drained of color, pupils like pinpoints; no question she was going to fall.

“Rey…” I stepped closer and she all but lost her mind.

“No! Don’t touch me!” Her eyes darted around the room, her breaths short and erratic, eyes bugging out, an excess of adrenaline with nowhere to go. “I don’t even fucking know you, you drugged me!” She started pacing, walking around in all directions, panting like a dog. She wasn’t drawing in enough oxygen. “You hurt me! You scared me! And now you’ve got people…watching me? Spies looking for me on the street? What am I supposed to do? I don’t know what to do! I’m trying to save myself…exercising a little self preservation! Isn’t that what you said? Just leave me alone.”

I slapped her. Hard, with the back of my hand, and she fell to the floor in a heap, crying. It wasn’t the best course of first-aid, but at least her breathing had slowed and she’d stopped pacing.

“Now get up,” I said, holding my hand out to her.

“Leave me alone,” she muttered, still in a tiny pitiful clump on the floor, holding her hand to her cheek. “I hate you.”

“You hate me?” I said, nearly laughing at the ridiculous statement. “YOU hate ME. Tell me this, did I steal your hard earned money and inventory, little magpie? Did I lie to you after promising I’d behave? If I’d known you were a thief I would have reconsidered my purchase. I would have reconsidered letting you run around the apartment unsupervised when a collar and leash would be so much more fun.” She had no response and wouldn’t look at me. “Now get up from the fucking floor and don’t make me ask you again.”

I pulled her to her feet and tipped her face up. Her cheek was red and puffy, but it wasn’t bad. There would be a bruise that she’d sulk about but she was damn lucky I’d been able to stop at one.

“Sit,” I said, pushing her down and heading to the bathroom for a dry towel.

She slumped down into the couch and bent over to pull off her socks, her wet hair shining like a ribbon of chocolate, hanging over her shoulder. When she sat I could see that one of her feet was covered in blood. Kneeling in front of her, I held her cold, slim ankle in my hand, clearing the blood away with the edge of my t-shirt. When I finally found the cause of the bleeding she hissed in pain as I pulled a shard of amber glass out of her heel, at least the size of a quarter. She dug her fingernails into my shoulder as I held the clean towel to her foot, putting pressure on the inch long wound as I talked, keeping my voice clear and even to encourage her to stay calm.

“The fact is Rey, you’re not in a safe part of the city. Christ, the whole city is a hellhole these days. I know that you were living out some sort of one woman urban adventure up on the North side, but a girl on her own down here is like a worm on a hook.”

There were other things I wanted to say to her: a big speech about how I had no intention of hurting her, how I wasn’t that bad of a guy; but I just wasn’t sure it was the truth anymore. Because something else had made my blood boil when I saw her in that alley. The dark, ugly truth was that _I_ wanted to pin her to the wall. _I_ wanted to press against her, bite down on that tendon that stood out in her neck. I was jealous of the man who was attacking her. It hadn’t even been 24 hours but already I felt it, like a plant taking root. She was mine. And so if I told her I wasn’t that bad…well, I didn’t want to lie.

I walked away into the kitchen and found a bag of beef jerky and a tiny jar of cashews, the kind they used to sell in gift shops with labels that said “I WENT NUTS IN NYC!” She needed protein, calories. I could feel her bones moving when I carried her, when I held her as she slept. Walking back into the living room she turned her eyes to me, watching every step like a cornered animal, her whole body tensing as I sat down beside her, handing her the food.

She bit into the jerky and rubbed the bruise on her cheek with the back of her hand, tenderly working her jaw, her eyes wet with tears that spilled over when she blinked. I wiped her cheek with my thumb, gritting my teeth as she flinched away.

“We made an agreement, Snoke and I. And part of it was that I wouldn’t hurt you, that I would take care of you and keep you…relatively…safe. He said you helped his crew out for a long time.”

“I did. I…did what I could,” was all she said.

“Is that so?” I asked, nudging her with my elbow.

“Not that,” she said answered instantly, her face flushing beet red, her eyes focused somewhere over my shoulder.

“Didn’t think so, goody two shoes.” I picked up the towel, the empty bottle of water and rifled through one of my shelves looking for bandages. “A runner then. That’s how I started…when I got back out. I was a runner for all kinds of guys, gangs, the Russians that settled in downtown. Of course I’m over six feet tall. I also carried a gun and I was good at collecting debts.”

“Yeah,” she said quietly, looking down at her hands. “I never did anything like that.”

 

There was a thread of disappointment in her statement, like she wished she had become a better criminal in her time on the street. We sat in silence for a few more moments while she ate, her eyelids getting heavy as her stomach filled, her shoulders relaxing. I could tell that she was tired of having to be so strong, of being alone and fending for herself. I knew what it was like; bearing the constant burden of survival, and we were all tired of it. As she started to fall asleep, melting against the back of the couch, I grabbed her face, holding her jaw in my hand to make her look in my eyes, to make her pay attention. I wanted to be her last thought, the sentence that ran through her mind as she dreamed. She whimpered as I dug into the sensitive skin where I’d hit her.

“Don’t run from me again, little magpie. I promise I’ll always find you.”

 

She slept for an hour or so on the couch, curled up on her side, her knees pulled to her chest. I spoke with Snoke who let me know that the ankle bracelets had been removed and they were on their way out of town. He assured me that he'd managed to calm Rose down and I wouldn’t be hearing from him again. Then he wished me luck but there was a hint of a warning behind it. He knew where to find me and he was still worried for Rey.

“She’s fine, mate,” I said. “Have a little faith in your old pal Kylo.”

He snorted in disbelief and hung up. It was nearly nine o’clock. After gathering up my deliveries, my money and my gun I went to wake her up with a light smack on her hip.

“Come on Schatzi,” I said, sweeping her hair out of her eyes. “I’ve got runs to make.”

Like a cat she yawned and arched, her lean arms stretched over her head, legs long. Her eyelids fluttered and opened and I watched as her face drained of color, the realization dawning that she was still with me. The nightmare wasn’t over. They hadn’t come back. I picked her up and she twisted and fought, kicking herself out of my arms, falling back on the couch.

“I can walk,” she said, standing, but not looking up. Taking a step on her injured foot she yelped, winced and hopped onto the other, then steadied herself. “I can walk.”

“Good for you. Go get in the bed.”

She looked up then, the color back in her cheeks, her eyes wide.

“Wh-what?”

I dipped my head down to whisper in her ear, my nose brushing over her temple.

“Or maybe I _do_ need to carry you? Because I don’t have time for this selective fucking deafness.” I grabbed her by the arm and walked her to the bedroom, sitting her on the edge of the bed. “I’m going out. I have to make two deliveries and pick up some supplies. I shouldn’t be gone more than three hours.”

She nodded and I could tell, could see in the way her shoulders fell that it was relief. I was leaving her alone and she couldn’t have been happier. Every silent rejection, every tiny grimace of horror, every blink of fear made my blood boil. In that moment I wanted to throw her down and show her what she should be afraid of, what I could do to her. But I wondered if anything could be as terrible as what she already thought of me, so I let her make up her own nightmare. I’d brought her a Vicodin to help her relax but decided to keep it my pocket. When I pulled the handcuffs from my pocket she started shaking her head. She stood and I pushed her down again, this time on her back, my knee on her stomach.

“Please. Please Kylo, I’m sorry for trying to run. Please don’t.”

I slapped the cuff around her wrist and pulled her other arm up to the headboard.

“On your back or your side, baby?” I said, my hand on her collarbone to hold her still.

“What? No, Kylo please. I’ll just wait here. You can lock the door…please don’t do this. I’ll be good. Please.”

I closed my hand around her throat and she gasped, unable to speak, her eyes bulging, her free hand grabbing at my arm.

“On your back or your side, baby?” I asked again. “I told you I’m running late.”

Her face turned red and she stilled under my grip, her eyes closed. After a moment she breathed,

“S—side.”

“Good girl,” I said, turning her over and hooking her wrists together, kissing the crown of her head when I stood up. “You’ll learn I’m pretty reasonable if you behave.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although not entirely true, old folklore suggests that Magpies steal shiny objects and trinkets from humans to feather their nests.


	5. Blush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four chapters without any smut? That's almost a record for me. Let's break it.

He stopped talking once he had me secured, my arms stretched far above my head, cuffed to a slat in the headboard. He pulled a blanket up over my hip and kissed my temple before turning off the lights and leaving me alone, facing a closed door.

Once I heard him leave the apartment I burst into loud, ugly tears, soaking the pillow, my throat stinging and dry, lungs sore from sobbing. To calm myself I started counting the seconds then grouping them into minutes; sixty, one twenty, one eighty, two forty, three hundred.

Outside the sky grew darker, filling the dusky room with shadows as the sounds on the street became louder and more threatening. I heard women screaming, the squealing of tires. I jangled in my chains at the sound of firecrackers, realizing afterwards that they were actually gunshots. With the encroaching darkness and ominous background my fears changed. For as much as he terrified me, I had to wonder what would happen if he never came back? I recalled reading a story when I was younger; an old paperback novel about a woman cuffed to a bed, her lover dead on the floor with no way to escape. What if Kylo got shot? What if he intentionally left me here to die, or as bait for someone else? What if, while he was out, another deal was made? Another trade, another purchase? Stick with the devil you know.

“Please don’t leave me here,” I whispered at nothing. “Please. Please come back.”

I cried until I was weak, until my stomach hurt. It was every tear I should have cried from the moment I realized that Rose had abandoned me; every tear for the loss of my freedom, the humiliation in the alley, running barefoot in the streets, being chained up like a dog. But most of all my heart ached because I didn’t want to be alone. I was afraid of being alone in this city. I didn’t have the strength for it anymore. I’d been alone for years, blocking out the silence with constant music, old audiobooks, working for strangers and criminals just for the company. I wasn’t prepared for this kind of life. Who is? Who is prepared to be a commodity, a bargaining chip? Bought and…used. Hurt. My eyes stung, lips cracked and dry. I was thirsty and exhausted. I wished that he’d drugged me instead so I didn’t have to think.

When I was a child I hated the babysitter. She was a nice enough girl, went to college at Northwestern, played the flute, let me watch t.v. well past my bedtime. But when I sat on the bed and watched my parents get dressed up, my mother wearing perfume for the first time in weeks, my father in dress pants, tying a silk tie, I was struck with fear. I knew that as soon as they left the house, as soon as they got a taste of life without a kid, the freedom and fun that came with no responsibility, I knew they would leave. I would go through the things I’d done wrong that day, that week. Had I sassed them? Not finished dinner? Not done my homework? Had I asked them to buy me something I didn’t deserve? They would have snuck two suitcases out of the house, told the babysitter to drop me off at an orphanage and I would never see them again. In the dark of my room, alone with my thoughts I didn’t sleep, not the whole time they were away. I sat in my room and watched out the window, waiting for their headlights, waiting for my mother, smelling like white wine and face powder, to come in and kiss me goodnight. I waited and I waited, more desperate with every passing minute, praying that I wouldn’t be left alone.

_Sixty, one twenty, one eighty, two forty, three hundred._

 

And then he was in the bed beside me, my hands were uncuffed and his arms were around me, his bare chest pressed against my back, his leg hooked around mine, his skin cool from the night air. He smelled like a party, aftershave and perfume, cigars and scotch. I felt him sigh heavily as he settled in, getting himself comfortable.

“Shhh,” he whispered in the dark, his nose buried in my hair. “No more crying. I’m here.”

 

 

The sun came up and I blinked awake. He was standing over me in his low slung jeans and nothing else, staring down at me with his head cocked to the side, as if observing some strange species in the wild.

“Get up,” he said, curling a finger at me. “You need a shower.”

“I…”

“Don’t argue. I’m in charge now and I’m not taking my eyes off you, little magpie. So you can walk to the shower or I can carry you.” He pulled the blanket off and ran his hand up my leg. “Then I can strip you…”

I stood up, if only to get the smug smirk off his face. He gave me a quick nod and I followed him to the back of the apartment where he’d already turned on the water to warm it. He handed me an old beach towel, faded and frayed at the ends.

“Go on. There’s soap and shampoo and stuff. Take your time, I’ll be right outside.”

I let the water wash over me for what felt like an hour. Rose had let me shower at the halfway house on occasion if the guys were out, but I usually just relied on sinks in public bathrooms, brushing my teeth with baking soda and my finger, washing my hair with an old bar of soap that I carried in my backpack – that I didn’t have anymore. Even when I did manage to find an abandoned house with functioning water, it was rarely hot, and in the heat of summer I would just go for a swim in the retention ponds to wash off the grime. Steam filled the small bathroom as I lathered a minty scented shampoo into my scalp and scrubbed soap under my fingernails and on the bottoms of my battered feet, still aching from my run the night before. It was luxurious and I could feel every muscle softening, relaxing, my resolve, my energy renewing, the return of some sort of clarity.

Then the shower curtain swung back and Kylo stepped in, still wearing his jeans, but making no effort to hide how he gazed at my naked body like reviewing a purchase, head to toe, his own broad chest glistening with a spray of water droplets. Even beneath the hot water, my blood ran cold. Apparently my time had run out.

“W-what are you doing?” I asked, crossing my arms over my breasts, backing up against the wall.

“You were taking an awfully long time,” he said with a crooked smile. “I just wanted to make sure you were ok.”

“I’m ok. And you told me to take my time.”

He nodded, continuing to stare at me, taking a step closer. He caged me against the tile with his arms, blocking me from the water and I began shivering, shrinking away from him as much as I could in the tiny, steam filled space. When we were only an inch or two apart he cocked his head to the side, his mouth set in a frown of genuine concern, his brows furrowed in thought. He pulled my arms away from my chest and put them at my sides, not pinning them there, not holding me, just positioning me how he wanted. His voice was low, his words like a secret between us, but there was something else there. Disappointment.

“You still afraid of me, little magpie?”

The truth was that in the morning light I wasn’t, or maybe just not as much. In three days he’d had numerous opportunities to be horrible, to hurt me, to force himself on me and he hadn’t, even though he’d kept that threat lingering at the edges of every moment, like a playing card peeking out of his pocket. Who would pull it free?

If I looked deep down I knew that I’d been waiting a long time to find someone who wanted me, or rather, who wanted to help me, someone who would take care of me for a while because I had to admit that I was so tired of taking care of myself. Just getting through the day was like hanging from a rope, your grip slipping with every second, no way to pull yourself back up to safety, unable to let go for even a moment. All I wanted was to let go. It was like wishing to be a child again, to go to sleep knowing someone else was responsible, that your choices were managed, your decisions were made and all you had to do was follow the leader. Wherever he lead. And I knew that finding someone like that would come with a price, and as a middle class high school graduate, sheltered and fragile, broke and unprepared for this chaotic future, all I could pay with was my body. That was something that had been made clear to me years ago.

But I knew almost nothing about Kylo, and what little facts I had all pointed towards villain rather than hero. He’d been in prison with Snoke, was a runner with connections in the city, held an arsenal in his living room and had what amounted to “a lot of money” in this broken down world, amassed no doubt by constant criminal activity. That was all I knew, it was all he offered. I wasn’t afraid of him. But I didn’t trust him either.

“No,” I said, glancing up through my lashes as I kept my head down.

He ran his hands up my arms, over my shoulders, his fingertips slipping along my collarbones, up the back of my neck and into my hair. It was as if he were a blind man, memorizing the planes and textures of my body, watching my face the entire time, challenging me to push him away. He didn’t go right for the obvious, didn’t grab my breast or spread my legs. Instead his fingers threaded through my wet hair, one hand holding tightly to the back of my neck, his other hand on my jaw, tracing over my bottom lip with his thumb, pulling at it.

“Kylo…” was all I could say before he bent down and pressed his mouth against mine, his tongue sweeping across the seam of my closed lips.

“Open up for me,” he whispered against my mouth, his lips warm and wet, his hips bucking forward.

A jolt of white hot energy shot down my spine, an instant throbbing between my legs. He pressed me against the wall and sunk into the kiss, so deep and insistent, yet gentle, coaxing me open, his tongue slick and hot over mine. When he broke away, letting me catch my breath, I could see that his eyes were trained on my open mouth. He sucked my bottom lip for a moment before backing off completely, but still not letting me go. I didn’t move, pinned to the wall with his hips pressed against mine, the length of his erection obvious against my stomach. I gasped for air as he reached back to turn off the water, wiping it from his face with one hand before slicking his hair back from his eyes.

“You taste good. I like kissing you,” he said, capturing my lips again, slipping his tongue between them, twisting, massaging, as if sucking the air from my lungs, or maybe breathing life into them; as if I could feel the touch of his tongue all over my body, dipping deeper. There was no other way around it. It felt good. I wanted him to keep kissing me.

“I can’t wait to feel that pretty pink mouth on my cock,” he growled, his thigh wedging between my legs and pushing up, hitting that sensitive, swollen spot between them and I jerked, yelping in surprise, my cry swallowed up by his mouth. My whole body sparked with energy and heat. My belly felt tight and heavy, throbbing with a need that I didn’t want to admit. Crystalline drops of water hung on the ends of his eyelashes. He let out a low chuckle and moved to kiss my jaw, to suck at the side of my neck. Running his fingers over my cheek, still red and tender, he kissed the place where he’d slapped me the day before. He licked the stray droplets of water from my skin, the back of his hand stroking lazily down my side before taking hold of my hip, lifting my leg to wrap it over his, his palm sliding over my ass. His lips touched the shell of my ear, his words like hot puffs of air. I could feel his lungs expanding, his ribs pounding outward as his breathing quickened.

“Are you a virgin, baby?”

Immediately I felt my cheeks flushing red, my teeth chattering. I put my hands on his broad, wet chest and pushed him away, trying my best not to look at those beautiful soft lips that had so perfectly fit with mine; lips that stole my breath and warmed my blood. He tipped my chin up and smiled. There was no smugness there, no cruelty, no sarcasm.

“Oh what a pretty blush,” he said.

“Let go of me,” I said, looking down at my feet. “Give me the towel.”

I was surprised when he instantly stepped aside, letting me walk past him to wrap the towel around my chest, holding it closed with one hand like a vise. My clothes were gone from where I’d dropped them on the floor. He stepped out of my way, rubbing his own hair dry on a smaller towel and then holding out his arm as if to say _“after you”._

 

Thunder rattled the windows as I made my way to the bedroom, the lights flickering in a power surge, rain thrumming against the glass as it gusted on the wind. The sounds of the street were getting louder as people ran from the storm. I heard yelling, someone screamed, a horn honking. I meant to yell at him, to demand my clothes back, to tell him not to ever touch me again, that I would take my chances with the storm if he did. I meant to fight, but when I turned around to face him he wrapped one arm around my waist and pulled me flush against him and my breath was stolen again

“I told you I’d always catch you Schatzi,” he said, smiling at his own joke before bending down to kiss me.

Before he could get to my lips I pushed away from him, not realizing he’d hooked his fingers under the edge of the towel. So there I stood, naked again, cold, shaking, staring at this smiling devil. The devil I knew.

“Give me something to wear,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “Please.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said, throwing the towel off to the side, running his tongue over his bottom lip like a lure. I couldn’t look away from his eyes a deep, glittering dark in the half light of the room.

“What does it matter?” I spat back at him.

He only shrugged and moved to unbutton his jeans. My heartbeat pounded in my ears and I reached up to touch the bruise on my cheek that was also throbbing with pain. There was nowhere to go, no way out, and if I fought him I would lose.

“It doesn’t. I was just surprised at how sensitive you were. Very responsive. I like it.” He stepped closer, the faded wet denim hanging low and loose on his hips. “I’ll bet you’re a screamer.” My cheeks burned with heat even as my arms were covered in goosebumps, my eyes locked on his undone fly, the thin trail of dark hair below his navel. “Did you really think you were going to get out of here without fucking me, baby?”

With one more step he forced me backwards until I stumbled against the bed and fell. He was on me in an instant, my wrists pinned above my head, pushing his hips against me. I froze, my eyes locked over his shoulder, the rain and thunder getting closer, the crowd getting louder, the sound of yelling roaring in my ears. This was romance in my world.

“I mean, you _did_ steal from me. And after how nicely I treated you, too: fed you, got you cleaned up, let you sleep in a big comfy bed for once. Tell me Rey, when do I get something nice out of this deal?”

“Please,” I whispered to the ceiling, as he moved one hand to stroke the side of my cheek, my neck, then moving to my breast. His touch was soft, warm, sending shivers through my blood, my nipple hardening under his fingertips.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of, little magpie. You’re shaking like you’re afraid.”

His mouth found mine again as he spread my legs apart with his own. My heart raced as he pressed his chest to mine, his full weight on me as we kissed, his tongue slipping past my lips. His hand moved to my stomach, sliding down over my hip. Even though I could barely move there was nothing forceful or violent about his touch. He was trying to make surrender easy for me, to make me warm and soft…pliable. It was trick…it was all a trick. He was mimicking the touch of someone who cared.

“If I touch you, will you be wet for me?” He asked, nibbling on my earlobe. “Or should I kiss you down there, too?”

I knew he could tell that he’d won. It was in the way a wicked smile spread across his lips when he caught my eye, when he realized I couldn’t hold his gaze. He thrust his hips against mine and I gasped, trying to look at him again. It was then that I knew I was going to give in.

It would be a lie to say I wasn’t curious about him, about what he could do, what he could pull from me, and struggling would only get me hurt. It would be a lie to say I wasn’t wet for him; that I hadn’t warmed from head to toe when he kissed me in the shower. So when he let go of my hands I wrapped them around his neck, pulling his mouth to mine, his appreciative growl vibrating against my lips. But when he moved back, sliding his hand down between us to run his fingers through the thatch of hair between my legs I froze, pushing him away.

“Yes,” I said suddenly. “I’m a virgin.”

No smart remark, no laugh, not even a grin. He only nodded in understanding, his hand moving slowly, his eyes locked on mine as he eased my thighs further apart.

“That’s OK baby,” he said, his voice low and soothing, bending his head to kiss my neck. “It’ll be ok.”


	6. Unrest

I would have thought it was the storm if the window hadn’t shattered.

Rey was finally beneath me, her peachy skin warm and wet from the shower, finally soft and relaxed as I touched her, my fingers finding the silken, soaking wet folds between her legs, stroking slowly, lightly, just waiting to hear her beg for more. She may have been a virgin but the way she kissed me in the shower, pushing back against me, her tongue darting eagerly between my lips; she was confident with her instincts and it went right to my cock. If she hadn’t stopped me, hadn’t looked so terrified when she told me she was a rookie I would have slammed into her balls deep as soon as the words left her mouth. That was how badly I needed to be inside her; how much I actually ached to press myself against her, touching every inch of her skin, invading, sinking into her pores, marking her forever. As it was I had to look away from her as I touched her, knowing that wide-eyed look would set me off in a second; my pretty little mouse. Even as she trembled, she let her legs fall open and I kissed my way down her neck, sucking at the soft skin below her ear hard enough to leave a bruise. She gasped, her fingers digging into my shoulders; a quiet, desperate _“please”_ falling from her lips.

Still, I moved slowly, silently. As long as she was giving herself to me willingly there was no need to frighten her, even though I loved the way her eyes would go so wide and round, the way her lip trembled before she cried. She wasn’t crying now. She was whimpering, moaning even. I licked at the last drops of water on her clean skin, kissing my way to the pulse point in the hollow above her throat, sucking at the slope of her collarbone. Sliding down her body, I closed my lips around her hardened nipple and she arched her back up to me, the most beautiful little mewling sound escaping her parted lips, slim fingers pulling at my hair, digging into my back.

And then it happened. The window next to the bed shattered sending pebbles of broken glass raining over my back and across Rey’s chest, half of a crumbling brick landing on the bed beside us.

“Kylo what’s going on?!”

Outside, mixed with the pounding rain and constant thunder there was chaos. A riot had erupted. Gunshots cracked through the fray followed by screams of pain, shouts of anger. Another rock sailed through the window, missing us by an inch and I pulled Rey down off the bed and onto the floor. Shards of glass glittered in her hair, bits of brick dust stuck to her bare shoulder.

“The living room,” I said, throwing her a t-shirt from a pile in the corner. “Stay down and go to the middle of the room, by the couch.” I held her tight by the shoulders and looked her in the eye. “Stay down and don’t. fucking. move.”

Blessedly, for once she didn’t argue, only nodded and crawled away, scrambling towards the couch. I grabbed my gun from the bedside table and made my way to the window, stepping around broken glass, holding my hand up against the icy blowing rain.

 

The street below was a roiling mass of wet, angry people. The medical clinic two blocks down was on fire and the residents were outside, some moving away to find shelter, others fighting to find blame for what happened. Gurneys with patients leashed to IVs rolled into the street, bystanders and nurses trying to protect them as the assholes of New York ran into the fire, attempting to steal whatever wasn’t in flames. Elsewhere in the bedlam, others had decided to break windows, looting other shops and apartment buildings completely unrelated to the medical center and the violence moved in an angry wave down side streets, the worst of it looming closer every minute. Fights broke out in pockets, guns fired into the air. I’d seen this sort of unrest before, but never so close to home. These were people who knew me, people who knew what I had.

“What’s happening Kylo?” Rey was in the living room like I told her, her knees pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped tight around her shins, looking even smaller than she already was, more fragile.

“There’s a fire down the block and the streets are going crazy,” I said. “Just take it easy and be quiet…it’ll die down soon,” I added, hoping she didn't hear the shaking in my voice, the uncertainty.

I stood watch by the window, gun in hand, making sure that the secured door two floors down stayed closed. The first floor was once a storefront but it was long boarded up, the door covered by a rusted security gate, no buzzers. Most of my windows were covered with blackout shades, but even I need to see a little sunlight, so my bedroom windows weren’t secured, but I kept them dusty to appear abandoned. Now that this one was broken I could see clearly how the riot progressed. Even in the rain the fire burned hot enough that it jumped to a building next door, triggering a burst of frenetic energy as the residents ran out into the street. Still no emergency vehicles showed up to contain the flames. There was no guarantee that they ever would, particularly in a low income neighborhood like ours. Meanwhile the alleys were filled with makeshift settlements, shelters built from nothing more than cardboard boxes and discarded pallets. One gust of wind and the whole block would be up in flames; the danger was closing in.

“REN!” I heard from below. “ _Hawk!_ Let us up! Hey, this is where the Hawk holes up!”

One of my runners saw me and drew attention to himself like an idiot, waving his arm, standing by the door. His call out had caught the eye of others and now multiple people were looking up at my broken window as thunder and lighting crashed over head, the sheets of rain coming harder, the streets more densely packed as word of the chaos spread and people from surrounding blocks came out to see what they could scavenge. Before long, angry people started rattling the security door and I knew our time was up.

Fuck.

I turned off the lights and left the window, pushing the dresser in front of it, leaving only the upper half exposed. When another brick, or rock or bottle hit the broken shards of glass I fired my pistol out into the air, letting off three shots before walking away. The building entrance downstairs would take a while to break through and my door had three locks, but it was best to let them know that I was ready to defend myself. Rey screamed at the sound of the gun, covering her ears and cowering against the couch.

“Quiet!” I snapped, changing out the mag. She was shivering, her wet hair stuck to her cheeks, knees pulled tight to her chest. I softened my voice. “Don’t worry. No one’s getting up here.”

I pulled the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders, telling her to stay down while I secured the rest of the apartment, pushing furniture against the front door and blocking the back windows. A new fire had started in the alley behind my building but the crowd was mostly concerned with working their way down the block, closer to the next street, where more shops and offices were still open. In the distance gunshots signaled the building owners attempting to protect their property as the desperation and confusion built, more buildings roaring with heat and flames, the air thick with black smoke and cold rain.

 

It took a couple of hours for the crowds in front of our building to disperse. There weren’t any authorities to thank for ending the riot – only the storm. As the night crawled into darkness the wind picked up, the rain sharp and cold against the skin and eventually the hail started, driving even the most dedicated looters into the shadows while the apartment building across the way smoldered and steamed, the fire going out. Only a skeleton of cement and rebar was left of the medical center.

I tucked my gun into my jeans and went to check on Rey who was still curled up on the floor right where I’d left her. Her eyes were glittering with tears, brow furrowed in terror.

“Is it over?” she asked, the armor of sarcasm and confidence she always wore was nowhere in sight.

“For now, for a bit,” I said. “But we can’t stay here.”

I was well known on the streets as someone who could get things, could fix things, could hide things; and to keep the scales tipped in my favor I kept my location a secret to all but a very few couriers and suppliers. A man storing five thousand rounds of ammo for a 9mm wouldn’t hold onto his inventory very long if the whole world knew where it was. So every year or so I needed to move, either holing up with a new crew somewhere and earning extra cash or finding an apartment and living a semi-normal sort of life until word got around again. Nobody can put down roots anymore. There’s nowhere for them to grow.

Rey watched as I dug through the front closet and pulled out my hard sided storage case for my bike, a helmet, boots and another backpack, bigger and in better condition than the cheap vinyl pack she carried with her. I’d hidden her clothes on the top shelf, but now threw her the jeans and bra, as well as her shirt and boots and one of my extra jackets.

“Get dressed. Fast. Take the pack in the kitchen and grab whatever you can – whatever we need.”

“Kylo, what—“

“Christ, Rey…don’t fucking argue. We’re lucky they aren’t beating down the door already.”

While she filled the backpack with water bottles, bags of beef jerky, protein bars and big white bottles of painkillers, uppers, antibiotics, I filled the hard sided case with a few extra clothes, ammo, two more guns, burner phones– whatever of my inventory I could carry without weighing down the bike. The rest of my weapons, the old computers, the boxes ammunition and hardware were the sacrifice I had to make to staying fluid. Last I pulled up the floorboard underneath the sofa and pulled out two thick envelopes of cash.

“Where are we going?” She asked, pulling my leather jacket over her shoulders, the sleeves hanging four inches past her hands. “What’s happening?” she said, chewing on her bottom lip.

“We’re bugging out Schatzi,” I said, pulling on my boots. “It’s not safe here anymore.”

 

 

**REY**

The wind died down but the rain still fell in sheets, heavy drops, icy and relentless. Once Kylo was satisfied with what we’d packed, he tucked his helmet under his arm, pulled on a pair of black leather driving gloves and lead me down the stairs, his fingers laced into mine.

“Don’t look at anyone, don’t talk, don’t engage,” he said, pulling on the helmet and closing the visor. “The bike is right around the corner.”

He pulled me confidently through the straggling crowd, both of us keeping our heads down against the rain. The streets smelled like smoke and piss and wet asphalt. Injured rioters moaned and writhed on the ground, friends helped people over to the curb, angry victims still yelling over a variety of injustices. It was like walking through a battlefield. In the distance, sirens indicated late arriving police, as usual showing up just when the worst was over to kick everyone who was already down.

We got to the end of the block and turned into a crowded alley. He held tight to my hand as we wove amongst the people, moving towards a black metal door. Kylo pulled out his key and we slipped inside a mostly empty garage like room with a cement floor and an old black motorcycle in the far corner.

Without a word he snapped the black case he’d been carrying slung across his shoulders to the back of the bike then moved over to a metal cabinet and pulled out a gas can and a black plastic gas tank that he strapped on top of the travel case. Rain strummed against the metal door and on the ceiling, the garage was dark but for the single battery operated lantern that gave off a sickly blue glow. I watched him work with my arms crossed tight over my chest, watching him through narrowed eyes. What was happening? Less than three hours ago I was laying beneath this man, this stranger, naked, my whole body tingling from his kisses, his touch, and now we were running for our lives. We were making an escape. It was just then that I remembered Rose.

“Wait! Wait a second. Where are we going? What if Rose comes back for me?”

He’d been sitting on the bike checking gauges and tightening our gear, getting ready to gun it, but at my question he sat back, let the motorcycle rest on its kick stand and got off, stalking towards me with his helmet tucked under one arm, his jaw set tight in anger.

“Rey, Look at me. Look.” He held my face still in one gloved hand. “They aren’t coming back for you. Your friends are long gone. I told you that Snoke made a deal and you’re mine now. They gave you up for their own freedom. You were nothing to them. Nothing but a bargaining chip. Now you’re _my_ bargaining chip. So you’re coming with me.”

“Wh-where are we going?” I asked, my eyes stinging with fresh tears, the words “nothing but a bargaining chip” echoing in my head.

“Not sure yet baby. West, South. We’ll drive out of the city until I’m too tired to drive and then figure it out.” Turning away from me again he put the helmet on and walked toward the bike. But before putting the visor down he turned and waved for me to come over. “Hop on Schatzi. Don’t worry, you’re safe with me.”

It must have been hunger, or exhaustion. It must have been confusion or loneliness or fear, but whatever it was, I found myself climbing on the back of the bike and wrapping my arms around his waist, chin tucked down to ward off the rain. Whatever it was, at that moment, in the dark of night, in the middle of the storm, at the end of a riot, I trusted him.

 

 

**KYLO**

 

The unrest spread further than I thought. What appeared to be bystanders taking advantage of a hospital fire was actually some sort of larger, city wide upheaval. As we wound through alleys and tried to make it to the bridges out of the chaos I could see more fires, more looting and more fights as if the whole city had collectively reached its limit. Everyone was tired of the poverty, the crime, the hopelessness, tired of every path being a dead end. The sidewalks were littered with shattered glass and bloodied broken bodies. A few were dead but most of the rioters were still alive, dragging themselves to safety. Of course between the gangs of assholes milling around in the streets and the unrelenting rain, I couldn’t get up any speed. We crawled through the crowds, making our way South and West at a snail’s pace. Eventually we were weaving through the heart of the city, where the rich had all but walled themselves off from the rest of society, comfortable in their self-sufficient high rises with their year round gardens, solar power and filtered water. Rey looked up through the rain at the skyscrapers dotted with golden light and I felt her lungs fill with breath before she sighed in resignation. It was a different world, and only five miles and a two lane bridge from the bedlam. In this urban luxury of “living beyond necessity” we saw families walking dogs, women dressed for a night out, couples hailing cabs. The asphalt was fresh downtown, the streets smooth as silk and just as quickly as we entered the tiny Utopia, we were leaving it behind.

We drove down through the city and around Central Park, which was nothing of its former self; most of the trees cut down for lumber and fuel. The museums were empty and filled with squatters, priceless pieces of art no longer trusted amongst the public, hidden in secret bunkers and vaults or entrusted to the homes of the rich. The zoo had gradually become a shanty town as all of the animals died off, jaguar and panther cages serving as single room shelters with no privacy, essentially putting the poor on display; daycare and preschool classes packed into the old reptile house, a makeshift health clinic set where the Apes used to play. The streets around the park were riddled with pot holes and deceptively deep puddles. Our legs were soaked to the bone and Rey huddled against my back, hiding her face from the rain, her arms tight around my ribs.

To the West a thin gray line of light indicated a break in the clouds and the end of the storm. Once we escaped the maze of the crumbling city the sky was starting to clear, sun glowing pink along the horizon and Rey lifted her head to watch the changing landscape. I focused on the road, zig-zagging around car sized potholes, weaving through the cars that were also trying to leave town; and by the time we’d reached the tunnel to New Jersey the adrenaline that had kept me going through the night was all but depleted and I need to find a place to hole up.

While it wasn’t exactly paradise, the further we got from the city the more normal things appeared. Houses still stood in neatly segmented rows, old trees arching across the streets, their growth unchecked, roots bursting through the sidewalks and driveways as nature began its slow march of taking over. Some neighborhoods still had working streetlights that flickered off as dawn broke. Because there were still people that were untouched. People who had either prepared for the drop or were lucky in their investments; people who’d chosen jobs that wouldn’t become obsolete, who didn’t rely on technology to live, who knew how to make do with what was left. These people were safely detached from the horror downtown, unable to see the dark plumes of smoke now rising from the North side of the city. And while their lives weren’t perfect, and were certainly growing steadily worse, they still had their homes, their food, their money and each other. For some life just continued.

We wove through the streets of the rich pockets of New Jersey, through Newark, out past the overgrown, unkempt golf courses, empty schools and boarded up shopping plazas. Back amongst the trees were gorgeous old homes standing silent like monuments of a lost time, the hit and miss nature of misfortune illustrated with every mile. One house covered in graffiti, yard covered in litter and broken furniture, the next burnt out and empty, then a cluster of houses, bright and alive, yards mowed, cars in the driveway. We drove past a mansion with a neat row of three crudely hewn gravestones lined up in the front yard. Most people were cremated these days, but those who held out for a “proper burial” often couldn’t afford the plots as more and more graveyards were closed down for improper procedures so loved ones were buried on their own property.

What I was looking for was a sign of a newly abandoned home, one set away from the street, no neighbors, no questions. My eyelids were heavy, burning with exhaustion, and after nearly two hours of going in circles I felt Rey tap my shoulder and point across the street to my left. It was a small house, smaller than the rest, but better than anything I’d ever lived in, half hidden behind dead and broken trees, overgrown shrubs spreading across the front yard. It seemed like a standard empty home until you looked closer, under the leaves, a huge limb fallen into a hole through the roof. The windows on the right side of the house were framed in soot, smoke damage, the glass broken, shutters torn away.

I nodded and turned in to the driveway, pulling the bike as close up to the house as possible. We got off and stretched our legs, Rey’s hair soaking wet, plastered to her face, her mouth set in a frown.

“Good catch baby,” I said, flipping off my helmet. “Stay behind me while I check it out.”


	7. Honey

The front door wasn’t deadbolted, and I kicked it open easily, a good sign that no one was home and no one was squatting. Still I kept my gun drawn, holding a finger to my lips to keep Rey quiet.

The fire had been in the living room; the furniture and walls black with thick tendrils of smoke and water damage, rain dripping through two huge holes in the ceiling leaving dirty puddles on the scorched carpeting, reflecting the leafy boughs that hung above. It had to have been weeks since someone had been there since the floor was covered in sticks and leaves. Mouse shit and shredded newspaper crowded the corners of the room, old magazines torn up into squirrel bedding. There were holes chewed into the wet and muddy upholstery of the sofa and the whole room smelled musty with new growing mold, late afternoon sunlight highlighting the swirling shafts of dust motes.

We walked through the kitchen that had mostly been looted – cabinets rifled through, refrigerator door left open revealing scavenged shelves and dead mice. And yet the further we moved into the house, the cleaner it appeared. A white linen cloth was still draped over the dining room table, paintings hung on the walls, a calendar tacked up in the hallway read JUNE. So it had been at least two months. A line of framed, family portraits lead us up the staircase featuring a rich, white, smiling couple with two teenage boys and a young, curly haired girl. Rey stopped and ran her fingers over the faces before following me up the carpeted steps.

“Oh Schatzi, we hit the jackpot!” I said, pushing open the master suite door.

Inside was a four-poster mahogany bed, king size, thick with down pillows and a silk duvet. I nearly fell face first into mattress, my exhaustion growing just looking at it. I slipped off my gloves and held a hand out.

"Join me," I said. Still she hung back in the doorway, afraid to walk any closer, watching me pull off my jacket. “Come on over, I won’t bite.”

When she didn’t move I took her by the wrist and pulled her over to the bed. She sat, keeping her eyes trained on me as if I were a tiger. But I wasn’t some uncontrolled beast. She should have known that by now. I was just a well-prepared criminal.

 

 

**REY**

 

“You stay here,” he said. “I think the house across the street was empty too…or at the very least no one’s home. I’ll go see what they have, check out the rest of this place. Take off your jacket, you’re dripping all over everything.”

He pulled out the handcuffs and unceremoniously locked my wrists to a slat in the headboard like it was a routine we went through every day.

“I know we’re in the middle of nowhere and you have nowhere to go,” he said, pulling my rain soaked boots off. “But since you’re a known runner and a dirty thief, I just want to be safe.”

Part of me wanted to spit on him, to kick him in the nuts, bite and scream, ripping the bedframe to pieces. But the other part of me, the more basic, realistic part was hungry, she was tired and thirsty and shivering with cold even at the end of August. So I sat in silence, my fate good and sealed, watching him dig around the dresser drawers, under the bed, opening and closing closets while making sarcastic commentary on the choice of shoes and sweaters while all I could think about was whether or not the people who’d once slept here were still alive.

He’d had so many chances to be terrible, and he hadn’t. But he’d also had chances to be the better man; to help me, to just let me go, to see that the circumstances of his "arrangement" had changed and send me back to Snoke and Rose. And he hadn’t done that either. It was as if he truly believed it – I belonged to him – that I was nothing but a bargaining chip, a new form of currency, another addition to his inventory. What would I be used for next? The thought of it made my throat tighten, tears pricking the corners of my eyes.

“Don’t worry Schatzi,” he said, pressing a quick kiss to my forehead. “I won’t leave you alone for long.”

As if the fear was that he would.

His boots stomped down the stairs and around the first floor while I sat and stared at the vanity table across from me. _A drowned rat._ That’s what my mother used to call our dog after he came in from the rain. And now, looking at the long stringy hair framing my pale, drawn face, her voice was all I heard. In less than a week my life had completely fallen apart. I was further from home than I’d ever been with no idea what was to become of me. Just the thought of fighting: begging for my freedom, begging for food, for sleep made me exhausted. He’d taken the jacket, but the rest of my clothes were still wet, a handy little reminder as to the weight of the world that bore down on my mind. A drowned rat. It was all that came to mind.

No, not all.

After I heard him leave the house, when it got very quiet and I lay down on my side, I thought about him kissing me. I thought about how it felt to have his weight on me, skin on skin, the hair on his chest rubbing against my nipples, his warm, rough hand on the inside of my thigh, pushing my legs apart. It hadn’t been until the window shattered that I realized I was holding my breath, frozen in a combination of anticipation and fear, my whole body a livewire of sensation, a string pulled taut with each touch of his lips or his fingers sending hot waves of arousal through my blood. It made no sense. Because when he wasn’t kissing me, he terrified me. And it wasn’t just the way he looked. It wasn’t only the way he towered over me, his long, lean arms covered in ink, the pale scar running the length of his face. It was the way he stared, the long silences where it seemed he was calculating some consequence or devising a punishment, the crooked smile that spread across his lips when he was about to spring something on me. When he wasn’t warming me with his touch, he made my blood run cold.

 

I was stretched out on the bed when he got back, all smiles as he opened the door.

“I brought presents,” he said, throwing a heavy shopping bag onto the bed.

He locked the bedroom door before moving a heavy upholstered chair in front of it. Then, once satisfied that we were trapped in together, he undid the handcuffs, tucking them into the pocket of his jeans. I stood up immediately, cracking and stretching my knees.

“I can’t believe I found this stuff,” he said. “Reminds me of Christmas with my grandma.”

My mind suddenly flashed to a little boy with a wide smile and big brown eyes, laughing in his feetie pajamas, running around a Christmas tree. I shook my head clear and watched him empty the bag. He’d found a thick pair of (dry!) wool socks, sunglasses and a half empty bottle of gin. Then he pulled out a shiny red box filled with shredded red and green paper. Tucked amongst it was a vacuum-sealed summer sausage, a smoked cheese sealed in red wax and two unopened boxes of crackers. Brightly wrapped Christmas candies were scattered amongst the items and they made my mouth water, remembering the taste of strawberry suckers, gooey caramel filled chocolates, luxuries I hadn’t had in months, maybe years. I remembered my parents getting gift boxes like these, strange little foods in tiny jars with fancy labels. I remembered them rolling their eyes and tossing them in the back of the pantry never imagining they’d become some sort of emergency rations, a life saving meal. I had to smile, it was such a ridiculous treasure to find, and yet it had my stomach grumbling.

“Here’s the best part,” he said. Then, putting the bag back down he shook his head and said, “Wait.”

He went to the closet and pulled out an old necktie.

“Sit,” he said, pushing me back to the bed. “Don’t look so horrified. It’s a good surprise.”

I sat, knowing I had very little choice in the matter anyway and he quickly tied the blindfold over my eyes. My heart started to race and when I tried to stand he pushed me back down with one heavy hand on my shoulder.

“Sit down and calm down.” Suddenly I felt him very close, his heat, his breath on my neck. “Have I hurt you yet, little magpie?”

I shook my head, unable to speak, my heart pounding as panic started to turn its gears in my head. He disappeared again without a word, a sudden cold emptiness around me. I heard nothing, no footsteps, no shuffling, nothing moving. I was dizzy and I could feel my pulse in my ears. Abandoned.

“Kylo?” I called out, a bit more desperate than I intended.

“I’m right here baby,” he purred, his hand on my knee. “I have a surprise. Open your mouth.”

I froze, my cheeks burning with humiliation while a telltale throbbing, aching heat built low in my belly, the strangest and most unimaginable combination of emotions I’d ever felt. I was afraid and the fear made me excited. I shook my head, turning my face away from his voice. He only laughed.

“Dirty girl,” he said. “Don’t worry, it’s not what you’re thinking of,” his lips again at my ear, nose buried in my hair. “Although I like the way your mind works.”

His tongue swept over my closed lips then pulled away, replaced by his hand squeezing my jaw, his voice a bit darker, a bit harder. A tiny whine escaped my throat.

“Open. Your. Mouth,” he growled, angry that I wasn’t playing his game.

I did as he asked, sitting patiently with my lips parted, waiting, listening.

“Taste,” he said, and I felt two of his long fingers push past my lips and over my tongue, sweet and sticky, buttery and rich.

It was honey.

 

In the early months of the drop, the world suffered massive Bee Colony Collapse. Thousands, millions of bees died in their hives or left them abandoned, a few sickly, confused workers left without a queen. The world panicked as the effects were immediate; hundreds of flower species went extinct over the course of three seasons, watermelons and avocados all but disappearing, crops suffering as pollination became more difficult. Foods that used to be staples available everywhere became luxuries, nearly as valuable as currency. Almonds, pumpkins and sunflower seeds all treasured up like gold. As the bees disappeared so did the honey, hoarded in cellars like priceless wine, jars of it selling for hundreds at auction, scientists breaking it down to see if it held any clues as to the collapse or how to reverse it. It was a liquid diamond, a commodity, and before long it was a rarity, spoken of in the past tense as a treat from days gone by. I hadn’t tasted it in years and now, being so hungry I licked it greedily from his hand.

“Good?” he asked, pulling his fingers out of my mouth. His voice was different, softer. “Do you want more?”

Nodding, I reached up for the blindfold and he slapped my hand away.

“You’ll take it off when I tell you,” he said. “Answer me. Do you want more?”

“Yes, please.”

There was a silent pause and then he kissed me; his plush mouth thickly coated in honey. Our lips stuck and slipped against one another as his sugary tongue swept over mine, his hands tangled in my hair to hold me close. He sucked a drop of the golden syrup off of my lower lip then kissed me deeper, moaning when I whimpered against him, reaching up to touch his stubbled jaw. He painted a line of it down the length of my throat before giving me his coated fingers to suck again. He licked and nipped his way down my neck, his other hand tipping my head back to give him better access to the tops of my breasts. I felt a deep, pooling heat between my legs, a thrum of energy through my limbs. And then he stopped.

“That’s enough for now,” he said, clearing his throat and quickly pulling the blindfold off before standing up.

I licked my own lips clean and wiped them dry on the back of my hand. It was the way he turned on a dime that scared me so much. For a minute I wondered if I’d disappointed him, if what he’d designed as a seduction had done nothing for him. In my inexperience he’d found I wasn’t good enough. Keeping his back turned he rummaged through the shopping bag he’d brought in.

“Here,” he said, pulling out one last item. “One more gift. I found it next door.”

It dangled from his index finger, creamy yellow satin with tiny spaghetti straps; a shorty nightgown with beautiful cream colored lace trimming the edges. There was nothing lascivious about it, not see through or low cut, but it was definitely lingerie. I hadn’t seen anything so delicate in a long time.

“Put it on,” he said, a hint of insistence behind the words that let me know it wasn’t a request. When I didn’t move quickly enough he pulled me up by the elbow and shoved the cool fabric against my chest. “Rey. I’ll tell you one more time. Just put it on, then we’ll eat.”

I took the gown from his hand and stepped around him.

“I’ll…I’ll go change in the bathroom, freshen up a little,” I said.

He frowned but nodded towards the door beside the closet.

“Don’t fuck around,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “I’m too tired to be nice.”

 

 

The master bathroom was white with two pretty sage green towels folded over the rack and a little watercolor painting of bluebirds hanging on the wall. It was these hints of normalcy that broke my heart, the tiny reminders of a time I was starting to forget, a time I could never go back to, an era spoken of as if it were myth and not my actual childhood. The slow forgetting was the scariest part, like losing hold of a balloon and watching it sail away, the colors and details fading with every second. The time would come, I knew, when I’d forget my mother entirely, the details of her face, the soft skin on the back of her hands, the smell of her face powder, her laugh. What was the exact color of her eyes? Were they more blue or more green? My inability to pinpoint it made my stomach clench, bile rising in my throat, tears stinging my eyes. Out on the distant horizon of my mind a panic attack started pulling itself together like a pile of bones becoming a skeleton. I had to knock it down. I had to stop being afraid, even though I was trapped in this house of horrors.

I shook my head clear and turned on the faucet, sending a rumble through the pipes as they creaked back to life. They rattled and groaned in the walls, spitting out old, musty smelling water that quickly ran clear, even a bit warm, and I splashed it over my face, running my wet fingers through my hair.

As I stood and watched the droplets fall from my chin I wondered if he planned on staying here, chaining me to the wall and playing house, looting the whole neighborhood for things to use or barter or sell. Was this where he intended to set up shop again? Or had I reached the end of the road with him, this feast of honey and cheese our last hurrah, followed by a quick fuck before he walked out the door. I wasn’t important enough to be let in on the plan and it was impossible to tell from moment to moment if he really wanted my company or if I was a frustrating burden. And from moment to moment I wasn’t sure what outcome I wished for.

Three hard knocks on the door startled me out of my thoughts.

“Let’s go, it’s not fucking prom.”

I dried myself and slipped into the nightgown, the fabric smooth and luxurious against my skin, nothing like the rough denim and old cotton I’d been wearing for weeks. When I opened the door he stood there in his jeans, barefoot, his shirt off, arms crossed over his chest. His eyes quickly flicked down my body and back up again before his fingers combed through my damp hair, smoothing it behind my shoulders and down my back. I shivered, recalling the feel of his tongue on my throat, his breath in my ear. Tipping my face up with two fingers beneath my chin he nodded in approval and said,

“Come sit down, I found wine.”

He pulled me forward with a hand tight around my biceps, leading me to the bed where he’d set up the gift box of food, the wrappers cut away from the sausage and cheese. He pulled a cracker from the package and popped it into his mouth before sitting. I sat down across from him and curled my feet up beneath my legs, watching as he pulled out a pocketknife and opened the dusty green bottle of wine.

“I’m not sure if its any good since it’s a 2018, but wine’s wine, right?”

I nodded, still too nervous to talk, to respond, still waiting for him to throw the bottle aside and spring, pinning me down, still confused as to whether I wanted him to or not. The cork popped and I jumped. He didn’t say anything, just held the bottle out to me.

“Oh,” I said, “No glasses?”

He rolled his eyes and took a sip before holding it out again.

“No glasses, princess. Drink up.”

I grabbed the neck of the bottle and drank a long gulp. It was too sweet, leaving a coating on my tongue, a sour aftertaste that I could feel in the hinge of my jaw. We ate and drank in silence, our heads down as we passed the wine back and forth. It was early evening and the waning sun cast the room in dusky gold. I felt warm, a sheen of sweat on the back of my neck. Kylo yawned and stretched and the look of his languid movements made my eyelids heavy. My cheeks felt hot. I was drunk, but if I kept him talking we could avoid the next part and then maybe he would fall asleep.

“How…how did you get your scar?” I asked, leaning back on my hands.

He looked up, startled that I’d mentioned it, but quickly covered his self-consciousness with a shrug.

“Prison dance off,” he said, before handing me the last sip in the bottle. The short answer a clear indication that he had no intention of delving any further.

“I can’t remember the last time I had wine,” I said, touching my cool palms to the heat on my face.

He laughed, picking up the wrappers and red velvet box, cleaning off the bed. The little muscles between my legs clenched involuntarily as I watched the muscles in his back, thought about his body stretching out across the white comforter. It was strange, the sort of delicious terror, wondering what he would ask of me, or if he would _ask_ at all. When he was done putting things away he stood and took off his jeans, sitting down next to me in his boxer briefs, his long legs stretched out in front of him, resting back on his elbows like a sated lion, rolling a toothpick between his lips that were stained red from the wine. His kneecaps were tattooed with two black stars, no other markings on his thick muscular legs. He ran a finger down my arm that felt like a lick of fire on my skin and I looked straight ahead, focusing on my breathing.

“You ever suck cock?” He asked, rubbing the silk of my gown between his fingers. His tone was casual, as if it were a common conversation opener. I looked away from him and shook my head, my mouth dry, throat tight. He moved the hem of my gown an inch higher. “And no one’s ever gotten to taste that sweet little pussy?”

I jumped away from him, stumbling over his bag and into the wall. Once I’d steadied myself he let himself flop backwards, laughing out loud.

“How did you think you could survive as a street runner in New York when you’re such a…goody fucking two shoes?”

His words cut into me, the way he laughed as he spat them out, how he thought he knew who I was without knowing a thing about me. I pushed away from the wall, instantly wavering on my feet, and crossed my arms tight over my chest, closing myself off to him, not allowing him to see one thing more. I wouldn’t give him any more ammunition to torture me with. He had a habit of trying to expose me, trying to put me on unlevel ground, back on my heels so that he could tower over me, knock me down with a flick of a finger.

“I’m not a goody two shoes,” I said. “I’ve known you less than a week. You don’t know a thing about me, not even my last name. Why would you say that?”

“First of all,” he said, rolling over to rest his head in his hand, “you were knocked out cold in my apartment for fourteen hours. I went through your bag and found your passport, which I still have, so I know that your name is Rey Gilchrist, that your birthday is August 13th and you’re twenty two years old. If I were into astrology I’d tell you your sign but I always forget that stuff, although I think I’m a Scorpio,” he added with a grin.

Meanwhile I had to bite my bottom lip to keep from crying. If at any moment I felt like I had the upper hand he was an expert at pulling the rug out. And the thought of him digging through my bag, looking at my things made me feel dirtier than anything he’d ever done to me.

“Twenty two,” he said, a little softer. “You’re drunk on two glasses of wine, you don’t smoke weed, a quarter bar of Xanax knocks you out for 12 hours, you’re a virgin…”

“Stop. I get it. I’m not a goody two shoes…I’m just…I’ve been…I was sheltered. I didn’t live like you did, like this. I didn’t go to prison. I didn’t need those things to escape. Just because I haven’t fucked every man who crossed my path doesn’t mean I’m weak or naïve. I’m smart. I’m strong. I’ve been on my own for years now and I’ve done just fine!”

For a moment he was silent, no longer the court jester, his brow furrowed in concentration.

“Why have you been on your own for so long? What happened?”

“I’m supposed to be at The Farm.”

He said nothing, but the look on his face told me I needed to go on…he wasn’t so much surprised at the revelation as he was curious and he wouldn’t stop picking until I told him something…anything. Everyone knew what The Farm was, but apparently he wanted more detail about me in particular.

“I was sent to the Donor Center when I was 18 and I…I got out.... That’s why I’m alone. That’s why I don’t stay anywhere, with anyone. That’s why everything I own, everything that’s mine is in that backpack that you stole from me.”

He stood then and came closer. I was staring out the window, pressing my hot cheek against the cool glass and counting my breaths. He held my shoulders and turned me to face him.

“Fuck. Don’t start crying again, baby. I’m not trying to be mean. I’m just saying that living the way you did, so careful and clean, trying to fend for yourself after a lifetime of comfort…you were destined to fall victim to an asshole like me. It’s not your fault. It’s just the way of the fucking world.”

 

He wiped the tears that I hadn’t realized I’d been crying away with his thumb and bent down to kiss me again, holding my face in his hands. Perhaps this was his version of an apology. It started gently, a way to soothe my nerves with a distraction, his tongue slow and easy over mine. But then he pushed me against the wall, his mouth more insistent, a grunt of arousal rising from deep in his throat, his hips pushing into mine, fingers digging into the flesh of my ass, pulling my leg up to hook around his hip. My body was burning, every nerve reaching out, every sense filled with him; the taste of wine and honey delicious on his tongue, the sound of his growling want vibrating through my bones. He smelled like sweat and tobacco, his arms rough with scars and hair and I could feel the hard length of his cock pressing between my legs as he rocked into me. Maybe I was drunk, maybe that’s why the decision came so easily to me, that it would be better if I gave in to him like this. So when he broke away to breathe, his forehead pressed to mine, I didn’t try to duck out of his grip. Instead I took a deep breath, licked my lips and asked him,

“Do I have three choices again tonight?”

For a minute he didn’t move. His breath was hot on against my skin, his eyes closed. Then he tipped my chin up, searching my face for something I couldn’t pinpoint, an answer I couldn’t give him. But in the end he just kissed my forehead and stepped away.

“Not tonight, mouse. Tonight, I’m tired.”

He let me go and pulled down the covers on the bed, and when he turned his back to me, the room felt cold.


	8. Oblivion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ** This chapter contains dubious consent and general bad sexual etiquette **

It was hard to fall asleep. His arm was heavy across my ribs as he held me against his chest and I felt hot, claustrophobic. When I closed my eyes I could see the white walls and engraved nameplates from The Farm, the tiny dorm rooms and cold blue glow from the LED lights. Things that were white and clean and bright, they usually made people feel safe; bathed in their reflection they felt bright and clean themselves. It seemed like progress rather than decay. But I could never sleep when I was there, even when the lights were out and the rooms flooded with “soothing” white noise. It was like the glow of the walls never dimmed, the coiled shape of the light bulbs burned to the inside of my eyelids. The handlers noticed my exhaustion and I received injections on a near daily basis. I still don't sleep normally as a result.

At first, when I was only thirteen, I only spent one weekend a month at the Farm in lower Manhattan. After finding an ad in the paper appealing to "families struggling in this difficult time," my parents were well compensated on a monthly basis for my blood donations, my right kidney, part of my intestines, bone marrow, skin grafts, stem cells. I participated in drug trials and underwent experimental procedures on a near daily basis. When I turned fifteen I was prepped to donate eggs every six months, taking daily steroid injections and undergoing ultrasounds and egg retrievals. I was even proposed as a surrogate once or twice given the lack of disease predispositions in my genes. Every medical test and procedure I agreed to provided my family with more security; a home, a car, a line of credit. Still a teenager, I became the primary breadwinner and when things got more desperate, the ante kept going up.

When I turned eighteen a special call for very specific testing went out. By then I was living at the facility full time, only allowed to go home to my family once a month for three days. Otherwise I was in isolation, preparation or recovery from some sort of procedure or testing. The Northeastern Region’s Governor’s daughter was sick. Some sort of cancer; they didn’t give much information. Why bother telling me, I was only a sack of organs and blood. But what I _was_ told with breathless excitement was that I was an ideal match. For what? The only cryptic answer they gave me was “for everything”. There were rumors amongst the dorms of people who had been sold to various officials or celebrities or the incredibly rich, their bodies mined of every possible organ, cell, tissue, until they were nothing but a corpse on life support, kept fresh and refrigerated in case their designated match needed something else. The Governor’s daughter was only sixteen, one of the last remaining of America’s Political Sweethearts, and they sure as hell weren’t going to let her die. But I wasn’t going to let myself die either, so that’s when I knew it was time to break out.

 

 

**KYLO**

 

Like I said, I’m an asshole, but there are lines I won’t cross.

When she stood up to yell at me I saw her stumble, her cheeks flushed red with drunken embarrassment, eyes glassy with exhaustion. I wasn’t going to take her when she was drunk, even though I could tell she wouldn’t fight, if only to prove how independent and strong she was, how she could make bold choices and not be afraid.

I didn’t want her that way.

But I knew damn well she wanted me. Or at least, she wanted…something. I could tell when I kissed her, how her body went soft, leaning into me, her cheeks flushed red in an instant and when I fed her the honey she had me hard as a rock. Whether she knew it or not, she sucked like a pro, happy to have my fingers sunk deep in her mouth, her warm tongue twisting and stroking seeking out every drop of the golden syrup. My heart raced at the sight of her wet, shining lips stretched around my hand, her eyes hidden from me giving me the freedom to stare. I should have fucked her right then, given her what she didn’t even know she was begging for, covering her sweet pussy with honey and eating her out for an hour. Or maybe I like to build the anticipation. Maybe I like the color of her eyes. Maybe I just wanted to see her face when I finally broke through.

I knew about the Farm from my research back in the city. That blank look on her face, staring straight ahead, it was what her ID photo looked like, and that’s what the Farm had published to advertise her bounty. They needed her back…like, yesterday. So she wasn’t only deliciously pure and naively sexy, she was worth a cool twenty thousand dollars. When I learned that little tidbit, my plan had been to have a little fun with her, maybe turn her out to a few friends and then drop her back at the Farm in Manhattan, collect my prize and skip town after banging her myself for a few days. Then the riot happened and there was no way I was leaving her to those wolves. It wasn’t because I’m some knight in shining armor. That was just basic human decency. In the morning we’d find what supplies we could in the house and head West. The bike wasn’t going to last long, especially if there were more storms, and we needed to get to the Junkpile outside on the other side of Buffalo so I could get a car. Hopefully Linxy would remember me, but even if he didn’t he’d recognize my money well enough. It was simple. We’d have a little fun, make our way to the Farm in Chicago and I’d leave her there. Everybody wins.

 

Once I turned out the lights and closed the blinds she fell into a deeper sleep, molded against my chest with her hands clasped under her chin, her long hair tangled around my neck, silken nightgown slipped up to her hips – she hadn’t worn underwear to bed. The temptation was killing me, but as the room grew darker my exhaustion took over.

I woke in the dark to her shaking in my arms, her head twisting, arms thrashing,

“Please don’t…” she muttered, her voice so tiny and sad, like a child.

My blood went cold imagining that she had to be dreaming about me. A girl like that couldn’t have too many demons roaming around her head, and only one could scare her right down to the subconscious. But then she moaned again.

“I can’t do it anymore,” she said, “Don’t go…please,” little sobs escaping her lips.

I held her tighter, stroking her hair. I’d been a prisoner and nightmares were par for the course. We’d all suffered, some more than others, but I didn’t wish them on anyone.

“Shhh, hey Rey. Wake up.”

She shook and whimpered, twisting in my arms, her hips pushing back against mine, her bare thighs moving beneath my hands, arms reaching out to grasp at nothing. I groaned in frustration, still focused on soothing her, but I couldn’t help but run my fingers over the warm skin of her hip, up the little ladder of ribs that ran along her side. In a matter of seconds her sounds changed. The tension melted from her muscles and she stretched and purred, arching her back. I felt my dick start to respond, so I touched her again, moving my hand to the flat plane of her stomach, pushing the nightgown out of the way so I could grind against that perfect ass.

“Shh, you’re OK, mouse. I’ve got you. I’ll take care of you.”

For a moment she stilled and I moved to stroke between her legs with two fingers.

“Kylo?” she murmured.

“Are you awake, baby?” I asked, nuzzling her neck, kissing the skin behind her ear.

She nodded and I continued to massage her, easing her legs apart, my other arm wrapped around her chest as her fingers dug into my forearm.

“You've got me rock hard pushing that ass back against me in your sleep, little girl. I can almost smell how wet you are," I whispered, slipping my fingers between her warm, slick folds. "Are you going to stop me?” She squirmed a little, but I felt her relax, her back pressing harder against mine. “Tell me to keep going, Schatzi,” I said, finding the little silky bud of nerves and circling it with my wet fingertip. “Tell me to make you forget that bad dream.”

“Please,” she said, her voice breathless and desperate, “don’t stop.”

I moved her thigh to open her further and used another finger, finding an easy, slow rhythm that made her whimper and buck against me, stroking down either side of her clit, giving just a hint of pleasure, just light enough to make her have to beg me for more.

“Don’t stop what, baby? What do you need?”

I stroked a little harder, a little faster, my fingers soaked in her juices. Without a word from me, she spread her legs wider, hooking her ankle around my calf, her nightgown high enough to expose her breast, the tight peak of her nipple. Her hips tipped forward, pushing against my hand as she threw her head back against my shoulder.

“H-harder,” she muttered under her breath. “Faster…” and then after a breath and a shake of her head she added, “I need…I…I don’t know…”

I ran my tongue around the shell of her ear and felt the goosebumps ripple over her skin. She ground herself against my hand and I laughed.

“Yes you do, you know, little mouse,” I purred in her ear.

I pulled her hand away from where she was clinging to me and put it between her legs, covering it with my own.

“Go on, show me how you do it. I want to see you do it. I want to see you touch yourself.”

She hesitated, but with a nudge of my own hand I felt her start to move, her hot little fingers slipping back and forth through her wetness until she finally pushed two of them inside, pumping in and out, bucking her hips against both of our hands, tiny secret sounds escaping her lips no matter how hard she tried to stifle them. When I knew she was getting close I pulled her fingers away and sucked them clean just like she had mine, drinking up her warm earthy cream while I thrust my own fingers inside her tight heat, deep and fast, grinding against her clit with the heel of my hand.

“Better than honey,” I said, and she whined, her breath coming in fast little pants as she reached the edge.

“Oh God, please, it's so...I can't...” she said, turning her face to try and capture my lips. I kissed her hard, letting her taste herself on my tongue as she sunk her fingers into my hair.

“Go on Goody Two Shoes,” I whispered against her open mouth, fucking her mercilessly with my fingers. “Let me hear you. Scream for me baby, come on.”

It only took a second more before she came apart beneath my hand, a strangled whine of ecstasy as every inch of her body stiffened and shuddered, her mouth frozen in a silent cry, eyes wide in amazement, staring into mine as if I'd just given her the world. Her insides gripped my fingers, pulling me deeper with the last spasms of her climax, and then she went limp for a moment, catching her breath and quickly adjusting her nightgown to cover up again, as if she’d forgotten herself, where she was, who she was with.

“Feel better?” I asked, kissing her jawline, the rapid, erratic pulse point on her throat. Already she’d turned her face back towards the wall.

“Yes. I…don’t know what…Yes. Thank you,” she said, and although it was probably less than an inch, I felt her move away from me, put distance between us; every place that our skin had been pressed together separated, cold air between. She was scared again, shy, retreating into herself.

I ground my teeth and set my jaw, staring at the long, shimmering fall of her hair as she tried to curl up in sleep. If she thought I was finished with her she was wrong. If she thought I was a beast, then she would get a beast. I was tired of these games. I was tired of waiting and playing nice. I wasn’t nice. I never had been. She was a fool to believe this was some sort of fairy tale romance.

“You’re welcome, Schatzi,” I said, flipping her onto her back and pushing the gown back up over her thighs. “Because now it’s my turn.”

 

 

**REY**

 

Before I could say anything, or even finally catch my breath after coming so hard, Kylo had me on my back, every ounce of his weight holding me still.

“Wait,” was all I could get out before his lips closed over mine, his body flattened against me, the length, the heavy thickness of his erection straining against his shorts as he slithered and thrust against me, pushing my legs apart. It was all happening too fast and I had no idea what to do, how to move, what to say. Everything he’d said about me before was true, the sheltered goody two shoes, barely even been kissed and now he was expecting…what?

I knew as soon as he’d pulled his fingers from me that I’d be asked to return the favor, and the thought of it had terrified me. The second he made me touch him he would realize that I had nothing to offer, no idea of how to pleasure him the way he did for me. In the years before the drop I’d had a couple of boyfriends, gone on dates that ended with a kiss, a short makeout session in the front seat, but nothing like what Kylo expected. No, I didn't suck cock or give hand jobs, I didn't know how properly "fuck a man" and make him fall apart with orgasm. When he realized that I was useless to him he would have no reason to keep me around; and I knew what happened to useless things in a world of limited resources. He didn’t pay Snoke for clumsy and inexperienced and now he knew exactly where to drop me off.

“No baby,” he said, pushing his shorts down and spreading my legs with his own. I didn’t dare look down. I could already feel that he was too big, too thick. Instead I turned my face away from him, closing my eyes. “No,” he said, pulling my face back to focus on him. “You don’t get to play shy after you came like that. You don’t get to say no.”

His face was different, his eyes. It was like a different man crouched over me, rubbing my still swollen, aching pussy with the thick, hot head of his cock.

“Kylo, please,” I said as he tore the yellow gown, the straps snapping with ease as he pulled it down past my hips, his mouth warm and wet, leaving a trail of kisses down the side of my throat.

I tried to lock eyes with him, tried to get him to see me. But I knew it was hopeless and I grit my teeth, knowing it was only fear of the unknown that held me back from opening up to him, letting go, giving in. I'd basically told him I wanted him before we'd settled into bed, and I was still trembling from the evidence of his ability to arouse me, his touch making me burst with sensation. He knew how to make me feel amazing things. I didn’t have to be afraid. But now he’d gone dark, the Kylo I thought I knew had disappeared and that was what I was afraid of. So I pulled my hand free from beneath him and slapped his face, hard. He froze, his hair hanging in front of his eye, hiding his gaze from me as he caught his breath. The silence seemed endless as I waited for his reaction so I moved my hand to touch his face, stroking the place I’d struck, running my finger down the length of the scar that ran through his cheek.

“I’m not saying no,” I said, my voice firm. “I’m saying...I’m saying I’m nervous. I’m saying you know I don’t know…I’ve never…just slow down and please don’t hurt me. Kylo. Please.”

Still he didn’t move and still I waited for him to change. I waited for the Kylo who whispered in the dark, who took me out of my nightmare, to blink, to reassure me; but he never showed up. Instead he slowly pulled both of my arms over my head and pinned my wrists in one of his strong hands, fisting his cock in the other.

“With me, Schatzi, it’s always going to hurt,” he said. “Just close your eyes and breathe. If you really want me, you'll be able to take it all.”

He pushed inside me; one hard, steady stroke, nearly tearing me open even though I was still wet, still soft. I hissed the pain out through my teeth as he moved, growling with each slow, stretching thrust, pulling out almost entirely before driving in to the root, his hips snapping against mine.

“Shh…its ok. You’re ok,” he whispered, almost to himself.

He let go of my wrists and I held tight to his shoulders, as if hiding beneath him would keep me safe. The muscles in his arms were flexed and warm, rippling as he moved, his head buried in the crook of my shoulder, forehead damp with sweat.

“Oh you’re so tight. Fuck I waited too long. And you’re all mine. All fucking mine.”

Despite the pain, the deep ache with every thrust, I felt myself warming, my core throbbing again, drawing him in even deeper. His voice was breathy and low, a hot whisper in my ear that turned my insides to liquid. I wrapped my leg around his, grinding up against him, now nearly frantic with need, like reaching for something I didn’t know was there.

“Shhh,” he hissed, when I let out a cry, his cock brushing against something inside me that made my whole body shiver. “No crying. No. The hurt is over. Now it’s good.” He licked the tears from my cheeks and started pumping faster, one hand on my breast, his lips against my neck, stroking the side of my cheek with his thumb. “It’s so good. My Rey. I could fuck you forever little mouse. I could keep you on my cock forever.”

I was suddenly overcome, a second orgasm building, threatening to be stronger and harder than the first, my whole body trembling as I dug my fingernails into his shoulders. He pulled back, holding my hips, a sheen of sweat on his chest.

“H-hard…harder…Kylo…please…”

He shook his head and without warning shoved two of his fingers into my mouth.

“Suck,” he said. “Suck them like you did before and I’ll fuck you into oblivion.”

His voice was weak, desperate. He needed me. He needed me so he could come. So I did as he asked, swirling my tongue around his fingers, sucking hard and deep, moaning as I worked, looking into his eyes that were locked onto my lips, his eyelids heavy, fluttering with his lasts stuttered thrusts.

“Oh fuck. Yes. Your fucking mouth girl,” was all he said before I felt him stiffen with a final push, emptying inside me. His thick cock pulsing and my insides clenching around him pushed my climax over the edge and I bucked up against him, my body like a thrummed string, a deep vibration that drained every once of energy.

He collapsed on my chest, pulling out of my pussy and my mouth at the same time, leaving me feeling suddenly hollow, fragile and limp. After catching his breath he rolled off of me and I felt his seed spilling out, warm on my thigh, my whole body aching, blood rushing back to my fingers when he let go of my wrists. Kylo stretched out on his back beside me and pulled me into his arms, my head on his chest as he pulled the sheet up over us and raked his fingers through my hair.

I waited for him to apologize, to explain what had happened, why he’d been so rough, cold, but all he did was kiss the crown of my head and pull my leg up to wrap around his, the two of us tangled like a vine, the sticky mixture of sweat and sex and skin locking us together, weak and tired. He drew circles and swirls on my back with his fingertips and in the dark he sighed and said,

“You’re beautiful, Schatzi.”

And for now, that would have to be enough.

 


	9. Mouse

I woke up in the bed alone, the sun shining in through the open window where Kylo stood with his back to me in his jeans with a cigarette, politely blowing the smoke outside. He couldn’t see that I was awake so I stayed still, watching the muscles in his back ripple and bunch, admiring the veins in his lean arms and the dip of his narrow waist. On his left shoulder there was a beautiful hawk diving downward, beak open, wings stretched wide. When he moved it looked alive, trapped beneath his skin. I remembered one of the people in the crowd calling him Ren but another one had called him Hawk. I turned onto my side, pulling the sheet up to cover my chest, my insides still aching from his relentless pounding. A good ache though…like after a long hike, the ache that lets you know you’ve accomplished something.

“Why do they call you Hawk?” I asked.

He didn’t turn around and before answering he took a long drag off the cigarette.

“Predator. Hunter. Villain.” He shrugged. “A good bad guy name.”

He didn’t seem particularly proud of it and his words came out flat, thrown over his shoulder like trash. I probably should have just let it go, but these were my feeble attempts at trying to get to know him…outside of his body, outside of his bed. These little moments and attempts at conversation were my only clues to understanding why he was dragging me around the country, humiliating me, teasing me, making me come so hard I couldn’t breathe and then barely acknowledging me the next day.

“Sure,” I said, venturing a smile. “But there are tons of predators scarier than a hawk. You could be a tiger…a crocodile…a T-Rex, why that one?”

I wanted to get something out of him like he had pulled something from me. I wanted to learn about Kylo, have him talk about more than what he was going to do to me, what he thought of me. I wanted more than double entendres and mind games. What were his opinions? What was his past? Is this the life he wanted? Had there ever been anyone else? Talking about himself made him as uncomfortable as I was being naked in front of him, so I would needle him until both of us were broken of our phobias.

He turned around to face me, his cigarette gripped tight between his lips, eyes squinted a bit from the smoke as he fastened what looked like a thick black wrist cuff on his right arm. When it was locked in place a green light lit up and beeped, triggering another beep from beneath the sheets. Then he smiled, that curling, wicked smile that I’d come to crave even while fearing it.

“Because I can spot a little mouse from a mile away.”

 

 

**KYLO**

 

With her pretty little face screwed up into a mask of complete confusion she threw back the sheets revealing the black steel and neoprene ankle cuff. Why did she think people came to _me_ to release them? How did she think I knew so much about them? I had a working knowledge of prison monitors going back nearly fifteen years. I’d worn one myself back before the drop and even for a bit after it so I was careful to give her the most comfortable and sturdy model, but one with a particularly short leash, usually used for transporting prisoners between locations or keeping tabs on them within a facility. Of course she immediately tried to pull it off, which triggered a screeching rhythm of beeps and lights on both of our devices and she quickly let go.

“Don’t waste your time,” I said, flicking my cigarette out the open window and pulling on my t-shirt, waiting for her to explode.

“Why did you do this?” She asked, her hand still on the cuff, just staring at it, but her voice was trembling and I knew she was going to lose it soon enough.

“Well, you didn’t like the handcuffs and I’m tired of chasing you when you run. It’s just more efficient this way.”

“I’m not going to run,” she said, so quietly it was almost to herself.

Between the tiny voice and the black band against her pale, thin leg she looked utterly defeated. And that defeat was delicious. Delicious because I’d known that was her plan all along. The minute she came out of the bathroom in that nightie I knew that she’d decided to give in to me, to snuggle up and sleep on my chest, spread her legs and then be gone in the morning. It’s not like I didn’t know what it was like to screw towards a purpose. It’s not like I’d never woken up alone before. I wouldn’t fall for it again. 

I sat down next to her and tucked her hair behind her ear. It was hard not to look down at her breasts, long lean legs. I wanted to feel her mouth on me; I wanted to taste her. Maybe we had time for another round…

“Thing is, I know you’re still scared of me Rey. Maybe not all the time, but it’s there, running under the surface,” I said, running a finger up the inside of her thigh. She snapped her legs together and scrambled backwards until she was against the headboard. “You were crying while I fucked you. Like it was some sort of torture.”

She looked up then, her beautiful face stony; jaw tight. But there were tears there too.

“You were hurting me. I asked you not to hurt me,” she said. “That was my first time. Ever. And that’s what you _gave_ me.”

 

It was a talk I didn’t want to have. I didn’t like what she was accusing me of, or the fact that she could be right. There was something about her that made my brain go in fifty directions at once. I was in lust, I was angry, I was infatuated with her and tired of her. She was a burden and a treasure. I wanted to throw her out onto the street and I wanted to keep her in my pocket. It was something I hadn’t felt before and it kept me back on my heels, reacting to stimulus like an animal instead of thinking it through like a hustler. She’d pushed her hips back against me, soaked my fingers with her slippery juices while she came on my hand. And I could tell by the look on her face that she liked a fight. She liked to lose those fights, to feel wanted, craved, possessed. A slap and a kiss. But I couldn’t make her understand that now, not when she’d just lost everything else, too. So I turned it all off and went back to being the Hawk, ice cold and bloodthirsty with sharp talons and singular vision.

“Listen Schatzi,” I said, leaning over her naked body, rubbing a lock of her hair between my fingers. Her hair was one of the softest things I’d felt in months. “I paid good money and I’m going to get every dollar’s worth for it. And now that I know you’re SUPPOSED to be at The Farm, waiting to have your bone marrow sucked out or whatever the hell it is they do, maybe I’m going to get my money back and make a profit, too.”

Her face went white and she curled into herself, every ounce of goodwill, every sprout of trust or friendship burnt to ash. And yet it was her own fault for thinking I was anything but an opportunist looking to survive. It was her own fault for not being one herself. It was her own fault for reading too many romance novels. _It was her own fault_. She started to claw at the ankle cuff again and I wrestled her hands away, pinning her down, straddling her hips, resisting the urge to thrust against her, to bend down and lick the side of her throat.

“Don’t waste your energy, baby. You take it off, I put it on tighter. You fight, I use more tools; ropes and cuffs, tape over your mouth, pills, anything I got, I’ll use to shut you up. You’re mine.”

“I trusted you. I told you I escaped the Farm because I trusted you,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “I thought that you wanted..”

I got off of her, shaking my head.

“Then you’re an idiot and frankly it’s a miracle you’re still alive. There’s no place for trust out here. We’re just…sharing resources you and I.” I said it with a smile she didn’t return. “The closest Farm is Chicago. Behave yourself and maybe you’ll learn something about self-preservation along the way. Get up and find something in one of these closets to wear. There’s a shitload of girl clothes in the next room over. We’ll find something to eat and hit the road.”

She wrapped the white sheet around her like some imprisoned Greek goddess, her hair tumbling over her shoulders, the copper catching the sunlight as she shuffled to the doorway. For a minute I thought she was going to swear at me, spit on me, go into hysterics. But all she did was stare for a moment before heading to the bedroom across the hall. The cuff beeped once to let me know she was still in range.

 

 

She found me downstairs, going through the higher cabinets of the kitchen, the hutch in the dining room. Almost all of the food and the silver were gone, but whoever had looted this house first was on the run like we were, with only so much room to spare.

“You have any space in your pack, Schatzi? I found some propane lighters, an old bottle of tequila and one of those water pitcher filter thingees.”

I turned around and she was just standing there staring, her arms crossed, eyes narrowed. She’d found a pair of jeans that were a bit too big and rolled up the cuffs. Her body swam in a faded purple Northwestern t-shirt and she’d pulled her hair back into a tight ponytail, sleek and fierce. I preferred it loose and messy. I preferred her in the wild, disheveled and raw, but she’d learn that soon enough. She would learn what I liked. Everything would change when she started to realize that I held every card in the deck. Everything would change when she realized that being a good girl would earn rewards, being a good girl might save her life, or at least that’s what I’d let her think. When I walked toward her she stumbled back against the kitchen counter, trying to maintain her stoic anger.

“You’re going to pout now?” I asked, pinning her in with an arm on either side. “After all the fun we had?” I leaned in close to her ear and panted the words she’d moaned last night while bucking my hips against hers. “Harder…harder Kylo. Please.”

Her mouth curled into a sneer.

“Fuck you Kylo,” she said, the words clipped and icy as she attempted to hustle the hustler.

I leaned in and kissed the side of her neck, my lips trailing up to nibble at her earlobe.

“Anytime baby,” I whispered. “You only have to ask.”

 

 

 

“The bike isn’t going to last,” I said, trying to finagle our supplies into a stable, secured pile. “Not all the way to Chicago anyway.”

The threat of leaving her at the Farm worked better than a ball and chain. Just the mention of turning her in for the bounty made her freeze like a pillar of salt. I’d heard enough through my dealings with the rich to know that they made the place seem like some sort of altruistic choice for people who wanted to help their fellow man, but in fact it was a butcher shop where perfectly healthy poor people were dissected and drained and distributed to the rich as needed, like a convenience store for kidneys. And her fear of going back had shut her down. She climbed onto the bike without a word, not meeting my gaze, answering questions with a single word. When I pulled out onto the expressway she clung tight to my sides, her cheek pressed to my back, but I knew it was only to keep the wind out of her eyes.

The weight of our cargo slowed the bike down and the expressways, once a smooth gray ribbon of speed, had long since fallen into disrepair; nothing but buckled asphalt, potholes and sinkholes, collapsed overpasses and washed out bridges. So most of the time we were forced off into the side roads, driving past abandoned strip malls, empty car dealerships, burnt out bars. It was warm, but Rey still pressed herself tight against my back, her arms snug around my ribs. As we made our way North the sun was low in the sky, casting everything in ominous shadow. The night was no longer safe. Not anywhere. So we would have to stop.

We drove up towards the Finger Lakes and west to Watkins Glen. My parents took me there as a kid. I remember it being the hottest day of the year and we trekked up the stone stairs to the top of the gorge. The falls and streams that were rushing with water in the postcards and on the website were down to a trickle, the rocks stained with waterlines from years past, dried, dead leaves crunching under our feet in the middle of July. My mother stopped half way up and cried, dozens of people grumbling and shoving their way around her, snapping pictures, guzzling water. I remember running ahead, using up my excess ten year old energy while my father held her, only stopping to turn when I heard her sobbing.

_“Does no one see it? No sees how everything is changing? Nobody sees how it’s all falling apart?”_

I didn’t understand what she meant. There were people who saw what happened coming for decades before it did…people who saw the world changing, the seasons changing, the population growing while the resources shrunk. Every day there were new protests and marches and signs and plans…every day another story of corruption, the chasm between the rich and poor growing wider and deeper, no longer something seen only in charts or economics classes, but in schools where the rich were given a different education, different access, and before long no one below a certain level could ever catch up.

 

 

The lakes and inland ponds in Upstate New York were lined with abandoned properties, empty boathouses, rotted piers. Out on the water pallets and boats were moored together as floating homes, wooded lots filled with tents and campfires, families bedding down before the sun disappeared completely. There had been two bad winters since the drop and thousands of people in New York alone had died of hypothermia in these shantytowns. We drove on the back roads, away from the water and towards the unkempt parts of the woods, where there used to be trails for cross country skiers and people on ATVs. Now the trees and wild berry bushes were overgrown, the woods dark and uninhabited.

We got off the bike at the mouth of an old trailhead and I walked it through the vines and branches, deeper into the trees, looking for a clearing where we could spend the night. I had no tent but we did have a couple of blankets and the sky was clear, assuring us that the rain was over.

“I can’t believe this is New York,” she said, breaking off shrub branches and pushing away tree limbs to walk through the woods.

“It’s the best part of New York,” I said, the bike wheels crunching over old foliage. “The lakes, the rolling hills, there used to be wineries and horse ranches all over this part of the state. I went to summer camp up here once, broke my braces water skiing.”

“I bet it was beautiful,” she said, looking down at her hands, her voice cracking on the words. She didn’t talk anymore after that.

 

 

**REY**

 

The further we got from the city the stranger I felt. Even though I was an alien in a different world, the lack of people, of guns and screams and dark corners made me look over my shoulder much less. But the worry would always be there. There were Farms in four cities around the country, and while the poor didn’t really care what went on inside them, the bounty for me was probably nationwide by now and could change someone’s life if they decided to turn me in. It was harder these days to distribute pictures of the wanted, harder to spread news across the states, but there were still phones and bigger towns still had email and within the vast network of humanity, there would still be people who were looking, desperate for that check. But for now, blended into the thicket of trees I could breathe a bit easier. Relatively. I could use that time to convince Kylo not to turn me in himself. It was fairly obvious how to do it.

The woods were nothing but shadows by the time Kylo found a suitable clearing. It looked like a crossing of three old trails with an old faded information sign on a wooden pedestal standing just off to the side, the base of it overgrown with wild vines and moss and a sun-faded map of the area with little pictures of various birds and mammals pressed under cracked, cloudy plexiglass. There were woodburned signs on the trees, yellow painted letters and arrows reading “MAIN LOOP”, “PINEWAY TRAIL” and “HILLTOP TRAIL”. And yet looking off into the trees where the arrows pointed it seemed like we’d been swallowed up by nature, not a trail to be found.

“Why are we here?” I asked, sitting on a fallen log, stretching out my legs that still felt like they were vibrating from our hours on the road.

“I’m exhausted and I don’t exactly want to invite forty neighbors over to poke around through my stuff.”

I assumed that I was included in the “stuff”, so as I was relegated to part of the inventory I simply sat, resting my head against the tree, watching as he attempted to set up some kind of rustic camp. In truth I was still angry with him for cuffing me, locking me down like a slave with a collar, not trusting me to run when I promised him I wouldn’t. Now that he’d shown me how little he thought of me I wanted to run more than ever and I was regretting letting him touch me at all, no matter how good it had felt.

As we’d made our way around the lake I’d looked at all the cabins, some obviously filled with families, bubbling with life, people who would be more than happy to take me in and protect me from Kylo. If I could get to a safe place I could find a burner phone in the next big town and try to get a hold of Rose or Finn. If not the houses, there were the tent villages, or the canoes I saw propped against the trees. There were a thousand ways I could get away from him, if I could make it out of the forest in time.

While I planned my escape he rolled rocks into a circle around a small divot he'd dug into the dirt and gathered up an armful of sticks, setting them up in a little teepee before shoving handfuls of dried leaves and pinecones inside it. Again I was struck with an image of him as a child, roasting marshmallows, singing songs, a Boy Scout pitching tents, going on hikes. The fire lit easily, sparks flying up through the trees to the clear sky, a halo of light marking our campsite as he crouched beside it, the flames casting him in gold.

“Are you cold?” He asked, opening the pack on the back of the motorcycle and bringing out a blanket. I shook my head, maintaining my silent treatment. He brought out two protein bars, a half empty bottle of tequila and a thin, wrinkled joint.

After a shot or two of the liquor and a couple drags of weed I could tell he was getting sleepy. He brought the blanket over towards me and put it flat on the ground, rolling up the two jackets we had to serve as pillows.

“Lay down,” he said, yanking me down from the log to the ground beside him. I stiffened in his grip and he sighed. “I need some sleep. Just fucking lay down Rey…please. God you’re exhausting.”

The fire was down to low licking flames, rippling and snapping whenever the wind picked up. Between the tree branches I could see the stars, a thousand more than I’d ever seen in the city, swirls of distant clusters, the edges of the Milky Way winding through the clear black sky. I sat with my back against the log and Kylo put his head in my lap, one of his arms thrown over my shins. Far off in the distance, I saw another glow. Another fire, another camper. It couldn’t have been more than two city blocks; far enough that it would set off the signal on my anklet, but by the time Kylo woke up and made his way through the tangle of underbrush, I could hide, or be in the protection of someone else. I twisted a bit, sliding and sighing to disrupt him and he moved his arm, turning onto his side, facing away from me. The back of his t-shirt was dark with sweat, the black ink of his hawk tattoo licking up from under the collar and his shoulders rose and fell in an easy rhythm as he breathed, already deep in sleep.

Why was I running? His question would be the same one he’d asked from the first day…have I hurt you? Have I made you do anything you didn’t want to do? And my answers, unspoken, would be the same. Not exactly. Of course he’d hurt me. He’d slapped me with the back of his hand hard enough that I tasted blood in my mouth. He’d pulled my hair with enough strength to rip it from my scalp. He called me names, laughed at who I was, what I was. He’d drugged me and handcuffed me and held me prisoner with a monitoring anklet. He knew that I had a bounty on my head and gleefully held it over me as a warning to behave. But he was also the one who saved me from being raped in an alley, carrying me back through the rain, cleaning the blood and glass from my wound. In the shower he’d kissed me with enough power and passion to make my knees weak, my breath short, goosebumps still rippling on my arms days later when I remembered it. When the city started to implode, fires igniting along with the rage of the citizens, he’d pulled me out of it and taken me to somewhere quiet and safe, feeding and protecting me without a second thought. And in a world where you couldn’t trust anyone, where even the people related to you by blood would give you up at the drop of a hat, he’d told me I was _his._ And when he said those words, when he looked me right in the eye and made such a declaration – I’d believed it.

But was that the life I wanted? Did I want a life where being safe meant to be compliant, to be quiet and do what I was told, to give myself away physically whenever I was asked? I was expected to spread my legs, to lay down, to shut up, to sleep, to run, to follow the direction of someone I’d known for a little less than a week and yet he acted as if the stone of our story had been etched. My life was his now. And why did he want it anyway? An extra mouth to feed, an extra weight to carry, an extra back to protect?

Life showed no signs of getting easier. We were out of the city and in a more peaceful part of the country for sure. But before long it would be winter, and outside of the big cities the resources were scarce. Soon enough it wouldn’t just be about sleeping beneath the trees and fucking in abandoned houses. He would have to keep us both fed and warm and hidden, and when he couldn’t do it anymore, I’d be shit out of luck, left on my own in the middle of unknown territory.

Or worse.

But if I were on my own, I knew where Snoke was, where he was taking Rose and Finn and the rest of the crew. It was a safe place with shelter enough for dozens of people, a place with fresh water and gardens and clean air. It was a place in the middle of nowhere of no interest to the rich or those in charge. It was a place where life could start over. If I could get away from Kylo I could take my Goody Two Shoes ass all the way to Snoke’s island and put it all behind me. Taking me in would be the least they could do after selling me out, and it wasn’t that far away, not more than two or three days hitchhiking. I would just have to keep my head down and stay out of the public eye.

I inched a few feet away from Kylo and he didn’t move. The fire was almost completely dead, the orange coals only kicking up a glow when the breeze came through, casting rippling shadows over the forest. Through the trees I saw the fire in the distance, still glowing, hotter and brighter than ours, still being fed.

“Kylo,” I called his name in a loud whisper to see how deep his sleep was. If he stirred I’d just tell him I needed to pee. He didn’t move.

The next test was the ten-yard signal. I’d heard it go off before when he’d let me walk off to pee behind a tree or when we were packing up the abandoned house. The monitor sent a single tone for every ten yards I walked out of range. When it hit forty yards it would beep four times and send off a piercing steady tone…on both the anklet and the wrist cuff. That’s when my head start would end. I stepped to the other side of the fire and further to the edge of the trees, where the smallest trail opened into the woods just outside the glow of our tiny fire pit. The monitor beeped and I watched as he rolled onto his back, huffing out a loud sigh but still sleeping, his arms outstretched as if mounted on a cross. He hadn’t shaved in three days and the dark scruff made him look a bit older, a mountain man out in the wild. I snapped over low lying shrubs, pushing hanging limbs out of my way, moving slowly in the direction of the fire. Calling out for help wasn’t an option so I did my best to move in a straight line, which sent me off the overgrown trail in a matter of two or three yards. It was a murky darkness; the moon nearly full, but its sickly blue light was blocked by the trees, throwing me into nothing but shadows and obstacles, no clue as to what was in front of me.

The second light flickered on and beeped.

There was no sound, no movement behind me. I knew he was exhausted and the tequila had probably knocked him on his ass since we’d barely eaten a thing. In front of me was a thicket of berry bushes, dense with sweet smelling branches full of leaves and fruit. I would have to go around rather than try and break through and armed only with a t-shirt, the sharp branches scratched and dug into my skin. The ground was more uneven, littered with fallen limbs and rocks and instead of a beep I heard a rustle and a long, low hiss. Looking up I saw a plume of smoke only a hundred yards ahead of me and my heart sunk as I realized whoever it was I’d been racing towards had put out their fire. My landmark was gone, the forest was silent and black.

And the third light beeped.


	10. Hunter

It was the second light that woke me and a quick sweep of my left arm let me know she’d gotten up. But rather than call out for her I sat and listened. She was somewhere off to the left of me, her boots loudly snapping branches with each step. Looking out into the forest between the tree trunks I saw where she was headed, another campfire. Still looking for her white knight. My blood started pounding through my veins, cheeks hot with rage. And although I was angry, disappointed like a teacher with a petulant student, there was something else. A feeling I couldn’t resist, satisfaction, like tasting your favorite food after so long without it. I felt my lips curling into a smile because in my efforts to lay low and stay off the radar I hadn’t hunted anything in quite a long time.

Before the third light could go off I turned off the volume on my cuff. While I couldn’t see her in the woods I knew that in this vast silence I was sure to hear her anklet, even buried in the brush. I stood and made my way to the edge of the wooded trail, scanning the darkness. Then I heard the hiss of the fire being extinguished, saw the shower of sparks and plume of smoke trail up through the trees. She would be lost now, alone in the dark, and the woods went on for miles. It wasn’t just a matter of hunting her for the sake of my pride, but rescuing her from whatever predators were out, human or otherwise. In the past hikers worried mostly about snakes and getting tick bites, but since the drop, the animals had returned to their habitats, now fighting to survive on the same level as humanity. There were more coyotes and black bears…even a wild boar or two roaming through these upstate woods. Still, I wouldn’t call out to her. Not yet.

The third light beeped and I heard it faintly, and sure enough she’d been on her way to the camp. I slipped an old burner phone out of my pack and turned on the flashlight, sending a blue white beam into the trees. Her trail was marked by broken limbs and trampled bushes and I started to follow, waiting to see the fourth blinking light. As long as it never went off, she was close.

 

 

REY –

My first thought was that the flashlight beam was lightning but that it was close to the ground and I heard the cracking tree limbs that came with it. He was awake. And he was in a better position to find me, having a light and seeing how I’d marked my trail. Now it wasn’t a matter of finding the other campsite, it was just a matter of getting away. I was suddenly gripped with fear, not of the dark, or the animals or even of being lost, but of what was going to happen when he found me, because deep down I knew that at this point, running was futile.

_I can spot a little mouse from a mile away._

I tried to move quietly, keeping low, bending branches instead of breaking them, looking for old trails or clearings, rocks I could hide behind. And yet as I moved the anklet stayed silent. I wasn’t increasing the distance between us. My throat was dry, my neck wet with sweat. For a moment I debated stopping, just sitting down and waiting for him to catch me. I stopped to breathe and my anklet lit up, blinking twice. He’d gotten closer.

“Rey! This isn’t smart little mouse. You told me yourself you’ve never been out of the city. What are you going to do out here in the woods?”

He wasn’t yelling, but his voice was stern and deep, and it cut through the silence like a hatchet. The beam of light hit my eyes and I ducked down, crouching behind a tree, praying that he’d not caught sight of me.

“I don’t think you thought this through, baby. So insistent on proving your independence.” He paused then and the light swept past me again. “Just stay where you are Goody Two Shoes. It’s not safe out here. I’ll come get you and we’ll forget all about this little…act.”

He sounded almost amused and it made me angry. An act. He didn’t think I could do it. Even if I couldn’t find someone to protect me, I could find a road. We weren’t that deep into the wilderness, barely half a mile. There had to be a house, a cabin, a tent…somewhere in this madness. So I stood up as the anklet blinked once. I ducked down into the brush…and I ran.

 

 

 

KYLO –

Waving the light through the trees I’d caught the shine of her eyes and moved in that direction. When she got up to run I caught her again, the flash of her bare arm sweeping through the beam of light.

I was close enough to hear her footfalls, fast and erratic as she tried to run through the forest. So I pursued slowly, following the sounds of her running, the clues that the trees gave and the beeping of the monitor. We were at least two hundred yards from the campsite, all of my stuff, my bike, my money. If I were logical I would have turned back and made sure that was secure. That was what was more important. That was what was going to keep me alive, not Rey. But still I broke through darkened woods, crunching over the leaves, tripping over logs.

“Where are you going mouse?” I called out. “The lake is behind you…and this area is full of gorges, drop offs and streams. Its silly to run away in the dark.”

Her feet stopped and I kept moving, the cuff on my wrist changing between the 10 yard and 20 yard alert every few seconds. I lifted the flashlight and swept over the landscape ahead. She yelped when the light hit her and kept on running, the monitor jumping to 30 yards. I picked up my pace, illuminating the ground in front of me, careful to choose each step.

And then I heard her scream. I lifted the light and searched for her eyes but saw nothing.

“Rey! What happened? Answer me!”

She didn’t. I moved quickly and in a matter of seconds all the lights on my cuff went out. She was within 10 yards. I heard rustling in front of me along with her panting breath.

“Rey?”

“Kylo.”

Her voice was small, broken. She’d given up for some reason and when I shined the light on her I could see why. She was crumpled on the ground holding her leg. I crouched beside her and she flinched, backing away from me.

“Looks like it’s always the big bad wolf coming to your rescue, baby. Maybe you should stop trying to run away from him?”

She said nothing, just sniffed up tears, wiping her cheeks with the hem of her shirt. I stood back up and held my hand out to her, but when she tried to stand her ankle gave out and she fell forward against my chest. For a minute she didn’t move, her forehead pressed against me, hands on my shoulders. I could tell she was still crying but didn’t want me to see it. After a deep sigh I heard her tiny voice in the dark.

“I’m sorry.”

My plan had been to berate her. When I’d heard her scream in the darkness my stomach dropped like I’d been punched, a chill running through me that I had to shake off. It made no sense that it would terrify me like that, and I had intended to give her hell for it, but there was something about that voice, the embarrassed, lonely way she muttered her apology, unable to look me in the eye, that made me reconsider. The way she was trembling, resting all of her weight against me, made me figure that the pain she was in was probably punishment enough. I was absolutely still angry, but it hit me just then that I was also still exhausted, having only gotten a half hour or so of real sleep, my mind still a bit fuzzy from the few hits I’d taken, my stomach growling and acidic from the tequila. Fighting just wasn’t on my schedule and it wouldn’t get us anywhere anyway and she would be the one who ended up hurt. So just like before, I picked her up and she clung to my neck, her tears wetting my throat. Without a word I put the phone in her hand with the flashlight shining and she knew I wanted her to light our path. It only took around ten minutes to get back, but by then I was sweating and my muscles were burning. I set her down and went to my pack. I had no bandages or splints, but I had opiates, and that would have to do for tonight. And because I needed to be able to rest I pulled out the handcuffs too, linking the two of us together. I was through taking chances.

I held the two white pills out. When she didn’t move I pulled up her hand and set them in her palm. She shook her head at me.

“I don’t…”

When she started to protest I shot her a look that indicated there would be no more personal preferences this evening and she popped the pills in her mouth, swallowing them dry and hissing in pain as she arranged herself on the uneven ground, trying to make herself comfortable. I curled up behind her and draped my cuffed arm over her chest, holding her a bit tighter than she probably would have wanted. Still, it was only a matter of minutes before she went limp and started snoring, her breathing slow and even in a heavy, drug induced sleep.

 

 

REY –

I’d taken painkillers before. When I was twelve I had my tonsils removed and I remembered my mother giving me a Vicodin so I’d be sure to sleep through the night. Being a kid who didn’t get high or drunk, who had no experience with altered states, I was completely unprepared for how hard the medicine would hit. In a matter of minutes life became warm and fuzzy around the edges. Colors were more vibrant and beautiful. The mattress I rested on was softer, the pillow thicker, the comforter a perfect cocoon. There were goosebumps on my arms that triggered a tingling shiver when I ran my fingers over the skin. Within an hour the throbbing ache in my throat faded, and what usually felt like shards of glass every time I swallowed became little more than a scratching tickle, not going away completely, but the pain just didn’t seem as…important anymore. In fact I became grateful for it; because without the pain I wouldn’t have been able to feel the delicious euphoria. That’s what they call it. Whatever it was, it was easy to see why people got hooked.

When Kylo carried me back through the woods I’d hid my face but strengthened my resolve, waiting for a constant stream of smartass remarks, promises of revenge, threats of violence, a growling reminder of who was in control. But even after I apologized for running he stayed silent, and the blank mask of his face scared me more than anything. He looked at me as if I was a stranger. As if there was nothing between us. I’d rather have had him backhand me again, punch me in the gut, make me walk on my twisted ankle, anything but the silent treatment. The silent treatment was like being alone.

So I didn’t fight him on the pills, even though I knew that one would have done the job and two would knock me into oblivion. But I guess this brave new world, this countrywide game of hide and seek, it sometimes called for a little oblivion, a little empty darkness to fill in with memories of how things used to be.

 

 

I woke before him in the gray purple dawn. It was cool, the ground covered with dew, the firepit still smoldering, a tiny thread of smoke twisting up through the trees. Kylo was on his back, my arm stretched awkwardly over his chest. For a moment before I was completely awake I forgot I’d been hobbled and nearly screamed when I moved my leg. Without waking him I pulled myself to sitting and he rolled onto his side, giving me a little more slack. I pulled up the cuff of my jeans to see the extent of the damage and was met with one ankle twice the size of the other, the skin swollen tight against the strap of the monitor, a hideous purple and red bruise spread out over the bone, nearly the size of a softball. When I pressed my fingers to it I gasped and gagged, my mouth watering with nausea. I wasn’t going to be walking any time soon, and the monitor needed to come off.

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath, now awake and looking over at my injury.

Without any further comment he sat up and unlocked the handcuffs, massaging his wrist and stretching out his shoulder. Still he said nothing directly to me.

“I…I’m sorry Kylo. I don’t think I’ll…I can’t walk.”

He stood, let out a sarcastic laugh and shook his head, rubbing his face and running a hand through his hair, staring off into the trees before walking over to the bike. I was on the verge of screaming. _Please just say something…yell at me, make fun of me, tell me I’m in trouble_. _Tell me I’m a stupid weakling who needs you._ I wanted to see his lopsided smile, his flashing eyes that could burn a hole through me. And when I didn’t have those things my blood ran cold with a sickening realization. He could leave me there. He could hop on that bike and drive off at a snail’s pace and I’d never be able to stop him. I’d finally become what I was afraid of being all my life…dead weight. Even if I were completely healthy I didn’t have the strength or skill to protect myself in the woods. After we’d left the city I had no idea where we were going, what kind of world lay outside the place I’d spent my entire life and he’d never bothered to explain it, except that we were in upstate New York, a part of the state that may as well have been a jungle.

When I glanced up at him again he was pissing against a tree not even ten feet away, cigarette hanging from his lips, looking up at the brightening sky. So I turned over onto my knees and crawled to him, dragging my left foot over the dirt, wincing with each bend of my knee. Beneath my hands, old rocks and pinecones dug into my palms, the sharper debris digging into my shins as if Nature itself was meting out my punishment. He zipped up his jeans and looked over his shoulder, his brow furrowed in confusion but still watching, seemingly riveted, as I made my way across the forest floor. When I got to him I grabbed his ankle, or rather the heavy, dusty black leather of his work boot. He looked down, tipping his head to the side.

“Rey…”

“Don’t leave me here, please,” as soon as the words made it past my lips I could feel my eyes burning with tears. The plea came out breathy and broken by sobs. “I’m sorry that I ran away from you. I’m sorry that I don’t trust you, that I’m afraid of you. I promise Kylo, I promise I’ll be good. I won’t argue. I won’t fight you. You can do whatever you want. Just please don’t leave me here alone.”

He looked down at me; a crying mess, both of my hands on his thighs, literally begging at his feet. I could tell that his eyes had softened, but there was something else in them, a flash of energy, a spark that I couldn’t translate. Power. He sucked down half the cigarette and blew the smoke off over his shoulder before crushing the butt beneath his boot. I dropped my hands and he ran his fingers over my scalp, down over my hair, his hand heavy on the back of my neck.

“You thought I would leave you here, Schatzi?”

I sniffed up my tears, my heart rate slowing a bit, my stomach settling; and I nodded. He shook his head and crouched down to pick me up, setting me on the back of the bike.

“You don’t get rid of me that easily, little mouse,” he said, wiping the tears from my cheeks with his thumb.

“I can’t walk, I can’t run. I’m…I’m slowing you down. I’m not any use to you now.”

I can’t articulate the relief I felt when I finally saw his lips curl up into a grin, when I saw his scarred eyebrow twitch up, his tongue flicking out across his bottom lip.

“Oh Schatzi…there are a thousand ways I can use you. Just you wait.”

He leaned in and kissed my forehead, his palms cool on my heated cheeks and I relaxed. From the first day I met him that smile of his had meant trouble even as it drew me in like a magnet. It meant mischief and humiliation. It was a smile that gave way to wicked, cruel ideas. But then, just like the pills he’d given me the night before, when he touched his lips to mine, or to my throat, my cheek, when he touched me anywhere it sent a tingle through my blood that made everything warmer, made everything inside me looser and soft. The crumbling world became fuzzy around the edges and the other thoughts that crowded my mind all became much less important.

He lifted the cuff of my jeans and looked at the swollen ankle, shaking his head. Then he switched off the power on his cuff and unhooked the monitor that had been too tight and uncomfortable. Without a word he fastened it to the other ankle and turned the power back on, but I didn’t dare say a word in protest. At least for now I’d learned my lesson. The throbbing heartbeat of pain that had thrummed beneath the pressure of the anklet faded away, but every millimeter of movement sent lightning bolts of agony up the side of my leg.

“Well,” he said, looking through his backpack. “I guess this is some kind of a sign that we need to settle down somewhere. At least until you can put a little pressure on it.” He pulled out an old grey t-shirt and easily ripped it into long, thin strips that he tied together into a long bandage. Then, snapping off two small, strong, live limbs, he made a makeshift splint, wrapping the shirt strips around the sticks to hold my ankle in place.

“Well well, aren’t you a boy scout?” I said, anxious to lighten the mood. He shrugged and nodded.

“For a while I was, until they disbanded in my part of town.”

In the early months of the drop people ignored the signs, the little things that started disappearing due to lack of funds, lack of resources. Schools stopped hosting after school programs, arts and sports and clubs all went by the wayside to save money. Then kids stopped coming to school all together because they needed to find work or their families became nomadic, or went off the grid. The only thing that grew was church attendance, end time cults, communes, fanatics. People started splitting off into tribes, sharing resources, devising their own laws and governments when cities and states started to fail. Anything outside of survival became a luxury. Luxuries were frivolous, silly, joyful. Luxuries fed the soul. And luxuries were a thing of the past.

 

 

KYLO –

She sat on the bike while I guided it through the brush, our trip made easier by it being bright daylight. I could tell that she was embarrassed or maybe ashamed, because she’d stopped making jokes, stopped looking over her shoulder to gauge my mood, to see if I was angry with her, as if expecting me to explode, to haul off and beat her senseless. That she assumed I’d leave her in the forest to die told me all I needed to know about how she felt about me, what kind of person she thought I was. Just when I thought maybe things were going to go a bit easier, we were back to square one. And while it was true that I had no interest in true love or finding my soul mate or whatever the hell she may have believed in; fighting on a daily basis, keeping someone on an electronic leash, chasing her through the woods was not my cup of tea. She should have realized (for the third time) that she was safer with me than on her own. She should have given up on her pride and shut her mouth. It wasn’t every day that someone in today’s world offered to provide for you. But it had also told me something else, something very important. Nothing in the world terrified Rey like the idea of being left alone.

“We’re only a couple of hours from Attica. Some old…associates of mine have a junkyard there and I can get a car. Then we need to find somewhere inconspicuous,” I said, pushing the bike out onto the dirt road. “We’re not the first ones to think of abandoned houses and I don’t want to have to build a moat and be on guard every night. So it’ll have to be off the beaten path. Something hidden.”

She said nothing, only nodded, her lips in a tight line as if forcing herself to be quiet. Her hair was pulled back in a hasty ponytail, little bits of sticks and leaves stuck in the strands. During her escape a branch had scratched across her cheek, nearly mimicking my own scar with a pink line, dotted with a few drops of dried blood. Being on the road for a few days had tanned her skin, her face and the tip of her nose pink with sunburn and a little constellation of freckles high on her cheeks. For a minute I could only think of her running wild in the forest, wearing nothing, her skin golden from the sun, arms and legs long and lithe with lean muscle, a little wood nymph with sparkling eyes. She needed her spark back. Soon. I hopped on the bike and she wrapped her arms around my waist, her head resting against my back.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, before I kick started the engine.

“I know baby,” I answered, and we pulled out onto the road.


	11. Grateful

We drove another couple of hours on dry dirt roads, making our way towards Attica, Rey keeping her head down and pressed into my back, her fingers digging into my arms whenever we hit a dip or a pothole that jarred her injured leg. Far on the western horizon were dark, thick clouds and I knew we only had four or five hours until another monster storm hit so I needed to get a car, even if took half the money I had.

I pulled off at the expansive junkyard with an old rusted trailer with OFFICE painted on the side. I’d been here once before looking for a boat for someone. It was only by luck they were still around, and from the look of things, doing quite well, leading me to believe they dealt in far more than junk.

“What’s going on?” she asked, sliding off the bike. She wobbled on her good foot, holding her injured ankle up, one hand on the bike, looking like some sort of delicate bird.

I saw the two men in the office look out at us before turning to give her instructions.

“Don’t talk and don’t try looking for help here because I fucking guarantee these junkers are not your Prince Charming.” Her eyes widened as she looked over my shoulder. “You’re hurt, there’s a storm coming and we need a car. So keep your mouth fucking shut and stay behind me,” I said before yelling, “Hey Plutt, you home?”

A greasy, bearded, overweight turd and his polar opposite beanpole of a brother met us outside, the fat one squinting into the sun as he looked me over.

“I know you?” he asked.

“Kylo,” I said, then thinking back I added, “Hawk.”

“Hawk! Brother!” The other man cried, stretching his arms out. “Welcome back, come on in! What do you need my friend?”

The smaller guy couldn’t take his eyes off Rey. Even in her baggy jeans and oversized t-shirt she was irresistible, like cool, clear water in a world of stinging dust. She’d limped her way to a broken down pick up truck and was sitting on the bumper picking at her cuticles.

“I need a car. Nothing fancy, just something I can pack this shit in and get to Chicago,” I said, not missing how Rey bristled upon hearing our destination.

“Of course, of course. Hey, we got vodka. Real shit from Wisconsin,” the older junker said. “Let’s have a drink and talk.” Then he caught my eye and spoke slowly as if I was supposed to understand his code. “You can introduce me to your girl.”

Rey looked up, wrapping her arms around her waist protectively, but I quickly moved to stand by her side, my hand slung over her shoulder.

"This is Rey. She’s…my traveling companion,” I said, raising an eyebrow at the older of the two men. “But she hasn’t been feeling well lately, isn’t much of a conversationalist. Then again I don’t keep her around for talking,” I added, making the men laugh.

Rey stiffened in my grip, and when I looked down at her she was clenching her jaw so tightly I thought her teeth would crack, but to her credit, she played along. Plutt looked her over, his eyes pausing on her ankle monitor then sweeping up to notice the cuff on my wrist. Without catching my gaze he nodded in understanding.

“Perhaps you trust Linxy to take her around, show her the grounds while we talk business? It won’t take long. I only have a few fully operating cars to offer. Now it’s just a matter of what you have in return.”

I shrugged noncommittally and pushed Rey towards the younger, skinnier brother. Her eyes went wide again, her chest heaving with panic as she stumbled to her feet, hopping a few steps towards the arm he offered her.

“No further than forty yards my friend,” I said to him, tapping on the cuff. “And if she tells me you tried _anything_ , I’ll rip your dick off and feed it to your brother.”

Linxy went from smiling to standing there like a punished toddler, but I didn’t care about that. What I cared about was that Rey looked much calmer, one of her eyebrows arched in what I might have called amusement. Was she, perhaps, smiling? I leaned in close to kiss her temple and whispered in her ear.

“If he lays a hand on you that you don’t like…scream.”

She turned away from him to clutch my arm, her fingers sunk into the fabric of my jacket, but I easily pried her loose and sent her off, limping alongside the stranger who offered her his elbow as a replacement.

"She's injured," I said. "Just find a place to sit down I don't want you damaging her any further."

 

 

Plutt and I made our way to the trailer office and he pulled out a dusty bottle of cloudy liquor with a yellowed label. Moonshine, bathtub gin, corn liquor...all of these little tricks of the trade were back in play after the drop...people doing their best to make their own resources if they didn't have the money to buy what was hoarded by the rich.

“Like I said,” Plutt muttered lowly as if we were discussing some sort of conspiracy. “I have a couple of cars, new acquisitions that are running quite nicely. You could test them out, I fill them with gas before you go?”

“And I suppose you’d just let me take one out of the goodness of your heart?”

He laughed and wagged a finger at me as if I were one of the greater jokesters of our generation, then threw back a shot, slamming the glass on the cracked linoleum countertop.

“You know I don’t have a heart, Hawk,” he said, laughing. “But I won’t take advantage of your desperate situation. A thousand dollars and you can have that lovely green bucket of bolts. A real antique! Collector’s item.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes, headed for the door. The car was worth half that but he was reading my desperation perfectly and like everyone else in the world, he was taking advantage.

“I’ll give you three hundred and you can fill it with gas, too,” I said, pulling a cigarette and looking out the dusty window of the shop to make sure Rey was ok. Two lights were lit on my cuff so she had to be within twenty yards, but I didn’t much trust her company.

“Five hundred,” he countered, pulling the keys from a pegboard behind the makeshift counter. I briefly wondered what kind of business he did, whether it was steady, if maybe I could find an old abandoned dealership in Pennsylvania and set up shop myself, do something above board for a while. Plutt went on and on about the car, how it was almost sixty years old but had belonged to a collector in Hollywood who’d had to sell his belongings after a scandal so it was in fairly good condition, only fifteen thousand miles. I nodded along, hands dug in my pockets while I watched my little mouse through the window.

They were sitting on the trunk of the green car. He was a bit too close to her for my liking, but for now I stayed put. He was doing all the talking, telling some very animated story, throwing his hands in the air, laughing and shaking his head while Rey leaned away from him, looking in my direction. I smiled at her through the old window but I wasn’t sure she saw me. I wasn’t sure she’d smile back if she did.

“Or,” Plutt said, suddenly standing right behind me chomping on a cigar that looked like a skinny log of shit in his mouth. He smelled like old feet and garlic. “I _could_ do three hundred if your girl had…say…an hour to spare?”

I turned around and closed my hand around his throat, slamming him against the wall beside the window. Tools and frames and tin cans rattled to the floor as he clawed at my fingers, the whole trailer shaking with his struggle.

“Let’s go ahead and pretend you didn’t make that suggestion. I’ll give you three hundred like I said and you’ll fill two gas tanks…because you’re such a nice guy. OK?”

The cigar fell from his lips. His face was going purple, eyes bulging, but he managed to nod and I let him go. We had a deal.

 

 

REY

 

Linxy sat beside me, close enough that I could smell his rancid breath as he regaled me with ridiculous tales of his massive junk empire with his older brother, as if it made him some sort of post apocalyptic catch. As time went on he inched closer and closer until his hand was on my leg, just above my knee, his dirty thumb stroking my thigh. I looked up towards the “office” that Plutt had taken Kylo to, wondering if he was watching, keeping an eye on his “property”, but Kylo only smiled and turned away as Linxy moved closer. I could have screamed at any time, but I wanted to show Kylo I could take care of myself. Obviously I had a few “feminine wiles” and I was clever enough. Besides he hadn’t done anything overly inappropriate. Yet.

The thin screen door of the trailer banged open and Plutt stumbled out, coughing, rubbing his throat while Kylo walked slowly, confidently behind him, lighting a cigarette. It struck me again how imposing he was in his quiet arrogance. While Plutt rushed around looking for gas cans Kylo casually leaned against an old rusted refrigerator to smoke, his eyes following every movement, flicking from person to person, the only thing about him that was alive with energy. Yes he was tall and broad shouldered; his physical strength was obvious. But there was also something in the way he just stared, his mouth in a slight frown of disappointment at the world, the way he locked people down with his eyes, daring them to look away. There was something about his silence that made you terrified of when it would break…what would cause the buried rage and violence to show itself. Even now he was watching Linxy, his eyes burning with that sort of dangerous energy and I let out a breath. My knight in shining armor.

With two full gas cans, Plutt lead Kylo over to an old green boat of a car and handed him the keys with a wide, placating smile.

“Enjoy, enjoy! Come back anytime!” He said, his voice shrill with panic, and I wondered what Kylo had said or done in the office to make this “deal”.

Plutt hurried back to the trailer, slamming the door shut as soon as he got inside while Kylo pulled everything from the bike and packed it into the car. I looked out to the west at the rolling clouds, nearly black, a few forks of lightning flashing in the distance. We didn’t have much time before a wicked storm hit, but it was rolling in with a cool breeze ahead of it and I closed my eyes to drink it in. I hadn’t felt fresh air like that in years and I silently thanked Kylo for finally getting me out of the city I'd been imprisoned in, letting me see the trees and hills and water; patches of green, a sky full of stars. He glanced up at me as if hearing my thoughts and nodded once before moving around the car, kicking the tires and checking the treads. I’d nearly forgotten Linxy was sitting next to me.

“You know, we’ve got everything you could ever need here, sweetheart,” he said, his lips dangerously close to my ear. “A roof, heat, clean water, food, weed,” he pushed a lock of hair out of my face and nuzzled my neck. “…cock.”

I heard a metallic click and looked up to see Kylo pointing a gun right at us.

“Let’s go, Rey. Before you catch something.” He didn’t lower the gun as I slid off the bumper and limped over to his outstretched hand. “Good girl.”

Finally he dropped the pistol and offered me his arm to help me into the passenger seat before sliding in on the other side. I looked back at Linxy who was still sitting on the old rusted truck with his hands in the air in surrender, but I realized as we drove away that I’d never know who Kylo was actually aiming at.

 

 

The rain started slowly, the skies slate grey with distant flashes of lightning. I tried to tune in one of the remaining national radio stations while Kylo balanced an old paper map on his knee trying to figure out a place to aim for, to “hole up” as he’d suggested. The front seat was deep enough that I could stretch my leg out, propping it on a box of ammunition, but I could feel the swelling of the sprain throbbing in the splint. I needed ice, a bed, a few more of those painkillers he’d forced down my throat last night, but I didn’t ask because I was fairly certain what the price would be.

As we made our way North towards Erie the clouds grew thicker with rippled underbellies, the sky a sickly grey green, thunder rumbling almost constantly. Kylo swore and slowed down, barely doing twenty on the empty stretch of road, his hands white knuckled on the steering wheel. A roar broke through the storm and a caravan of people on motorcycles, maybe twenty, sped past the car sending up walls of water as they zig zagged around us. They gunned their engines as they passed, disappearing as fast as they came, but the damage was done.

“Fuck, almost ran me off the fucking road!” Kylo growled, flicking his spent cigarette out the window, letting in a blast of wind and rain. “Assholes!” He muttered to himself, shaking his head as he rolled the window back up. “This is…it’s getting too windy, I can barely control this….fucking….boat. Christ!”

“Then pull over,” I said quietly. “We can pull over.” He didn’t respond right away so I finally reached out and put a hand on his forearm. “Kylo, it’s OK. We’re OK. You need to calm down.”

He looked down at my hand as if it were a viper but didn’t flinch or pull away. I gave his arm a squeeze of encouragement before putting my hand back in my lap. Then he looked back out at the darkened sky and nodded tightly before pulling off into the grass and cutting the engine. The rain washed over the car in sheets, quickly fogging the windows and blurring the world outside. I watched him stretch his arms over his head and rub his eyes, a low groan rumbling from his throat. My cheeks burned as the sound took me back to the night in the abandoned house, the noises he made as he thrust inside me.

“I could have saved myself a bit of money back there,” he said, not looking at me. “That guy, Plutt? All he wanted was an hour.”

The air flew from my lungs in a gasp, my mouth dry as I realized what he was telling me. When I turned to look he was just staring at me, frowning, like I’d done something wrong just by existing. He wrapped a hand around my arm and pulled me across the wide bench seat. I yelped in pain as my ankle twisted in its splint, my legs sprawled out behind me.

“That was my original plan for you, you know. If the city hadn’t flared up you could have made me fucking thousands with that pretty blush, those perfect little tits. That mouth. But Plutt’s a fucking pig and I didn’t want him touching you.” He rubbed a thumb over my lips, his mouth in a tight frown. “ _Thank you Kylo,_ ” he said, as if instructing a child, his hand heavy on the back of my neck.

“Th-thank you,” I said, lowering my eyes.

“Why don’t you show me just how appreciative you are?” He said, sitting back against the seat.

“I am…thank you so much. I…”

“Kiss me,” he said.

When I didn’t respond right away he grabbed me around the waist and pulled me into his lap, forcing me to straddle his thick thighs, his hands tight on my hips, our faces only inches apart.

“Kiss me. Pretend like you really, really want to and we’ll see if I believe you.”

“I…”

In one swift movement he reached down and ratcheted the seat back as far as it would go, making me slam forward against him then back, the steering wheel cutting hard into my spine.

“God dammit Rey, just do what you’re told for once without thinking about it!”

“I…I’m sorry.”

He just stared, waiting, his face a blank mask. But even behind that disappointment and frustration and his mask of arrogance, I saw something else. Sadness. He saw his request as a punishment. He assumed that there was no way I would actually _want_ to kiss him. It was as if he believed that the only way he could have me would be to force me. Of course, he’d never tried anything else.

I looked at his lips, soft and full, pouting, and I remembered them sticky, shiny, slipping against mine while coated in honey. I remembered him whispering ‘shhhhh’ in my ear to coax me from my nightmare. Closing my eyes I leaned in to kiss him, my hands on his chest. He didn’t move, didn’t respond, so I flicked my tongue over his closed lips and held his face in my hands, my thumb running the length of his scar. His mouth opened and I slipped my tongue inside, sweeping over his, holding him tighter as I felt his fingers digging into the skin of my thighs.

After a moment he groaned, pushing forward to kiss back, one hand running up my spine beneath my shirt, the other wrapped tightly around the back of my neck. He bucked his hips up and I could feel the hard ridge of his cock pressing into the seam of my jeans. I froze as a jolt of arousal ran through me and he laughed, pulling back with a gentle bite on my bottom lip.

“There’s that pretty blush again,” he said, rolling his hips, pushing up. “What’s got you so hot baby? The idea of being pimped out to the highest bidder, or sitting on my dick?”

I tried to climb off of him but he simply grabbed my hips and pushed me back down, his eyes cold and laser focused, the hint of softness I’d seen before well hidden again.

“I kissed you, just like you asked,” I said looking out the side window at the watery darkness. Night was falling and it was as if we were closed into a black box. Still I looked anywhere but at his stare. It drained me. There was too much in it and I briefly wondered if he had some preternatural ability to read minds, to drill into my soul.

“I know you did, good girl,” he purred, running his hand down the length of my ponytail before winding it around his hand. “But now I think you want more.” He lifted his hips again, pressing against my heated core and I bit my lip to keep from gasping. “Right baby?”

Putting both hands on his chest, I pushed him back against the seat and said,

“No! I did what you asked, let me go.”

In a second he had me pinned to the steering wheel with one hand closed tight around my throat, his thumb stroking over my jaw. The horn wailed its off key note in a warbling, extended tone as my back slammed into it and he cut off my air completely.

“Don’t make me prove you wrong, Goody Two Shoes,” he hissed, licking up the side of my face.

I clawed at his strangling hand as the other reached down to unbutton my jeans.

“Please,” I could barely get the word out, just a puff of air from my lips.

Still he held tight, his free hand working its way inside my pants, shoving my underwear to the side. Then, with the wickedest smile on his lips, he let go. I collapsed forward against his chest, gasping for air, coughing, sputtering as he stroked my hair, whispering.

“Shhh, its OK, you’re OK.”

Then he yanked my head back by the hair and slipped his shining wet fingers into my mouth. I twisted in his grip but he held firm, pushing his hand so far over my tongue that I gagged, saliva dripping from the corner of my mouth.

“Clean it off,” he said, his voice quiet and remarkably calm, but it was very clearly an order.

And still he rubbed up against me, still hard and hot. And still I could feel the wetness growing between my legs as I sucked my own juices from his hand. A heavy, throbbing heat built in my core and I gave the slightest roll of my hips, just for a bit of relief. It wasn’t wrong to want relief.

“You tired? You want to sleep?” He cooed, nuzzling my neck, his lips near my ear.

I nodded silently and he continued to buck up against my clit, his hands heavy on my hips.

“Get yourself off then and we’ll both get some rest.”

When I opened my mouth to protest he slapped his hand over it and shook his head.

“Don’t. Argue. You won’t like the punishment.”

Before I could try and twist away from him he grabbed both of my wrists, pinning them tight behind my back, his own arms like a cage on either side. My only option, my only possible movement was to rut against him like an animal.

“Go on baby, I love to hear you whimpering.”

My body continued to betray me as he gave one hard, dramatic thrust upward and I gasped, the muscles within me clenching, bubbling energy rippling through my blood. God I wanted to come. Now I was reduced to an animal with a feral need, a stray dog humping someone’s leg while the world pointed and laughed. I rocked and bucked, grinding against the length of his cock, closing my eyes to think back to how gently he touched me when I slept, how he stroked the insides of my thighs, kissed my neck, his thick fingers pumping inside me. Still I pushed into him harder, a whine of frustration escaping from low in my throat. He took the opportunity to crush his mouth against my lips, his own growl rumbling between us, his tongue hot and slick over mine.

My ankle throbbed with pain. I was hot, sore and bruised and it wasn’t working. I could feel my wetness soaking through my jeans, my heart racing as it chased my need to the edge, thighs trembling. But something held me back, a wall I couldn’t get through. I’d never felt such frustration and it had me near tears.

“I…I can’t,” I said, my voice broken. “I can’t do this, please.”

I looked him in the eye, hoping he would see my desperation, that he would realize this was enough humiliation, enough torture. But he didn’t. Instead he let go of my hands and pulled me against his chest, one hand on the back of my neck, pulling my ear to his lips.

“You can, Rey. And you will,” he purred, pulling my hair hard enough that I felt it tearing from my scalp. “When I tell you to come, you come for me. Got it?”

And suddenly my mind was filled with other images; my wrists pinned beneath his, the way he threw me on the bed, flipped me on my back, his heavy hand covering my mouth, eyes burning with power. I started to shake, my head light, long, warbling cries leaving my lungs. He grabbed my throat again and slammed me against the steering wheel, his breath hot on my neck.

“I’m going to turn you into my very own dirty little fuck slut if it’s the last thing I do, Schatzi.”

While I gasped for air he ran his tongue over my open lips one last time before whispering,

“Come for me, Rey.”

He let go of my throat and my whole body started to tremble as the air rushed back to my lungs, every nerve alive, exploding with pleasure, goosebumps pebbling my arms. My body jerked and thrashed, a long painful wail escaping as I fell forward, limp, my head on his shoulder as I rode out the aftershocks. Every ounce of energy was drawn from my muscles like a deflating balloon, the pain in my ankle nothing but a memory. Euphoria.

“Good girl,” he said, his fingertips tickling over my sweat soaked back. “I knew you needed that, little mouse.”

His cock twitched beneath me and he let out a growl, pushing me roughly off his lap.

“Fuck,” he said, unzipping his jeans.

I moved as far away from him as I could, my back against the passenger seat door. He freed his dick and started stroking it, his eyes closed, brow furrowed in deep concentration. I was riveted to his face, to the sounds he made, the way his body moved, the tendons in the back of his hand, his mouth open, tongue flicking over his lower lip.

“I’m thinking about that tight cunt of yours, Schatzi,” he said, his hand moving faster. “And your mouth, those lips. Oh god I can’t wait to feed you my cock…”

“Stop,”

“All the things I’m going to do to you.” His face twisted into something like agony. “The things I’ll teach you to do to me…”

“Don’t say…”

“Shhh...Shut up,” he growled just before being overtaken by his climax, letting out a long, low groan of relief, head bowed, his hand covered in his pearly come.

I looked out the window as he caught his breath, disgusted at how he’d been thinking of me and embarrassed at how I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Once he’d recovered he reached into the back seat and pulled a shirt out of his backpack, using it to clean up the mess.

“I did everything you asked. Why would you do that?” I asked quietly. “Why do you try so hard to embarrass me? Make me feel…dirty?”

He turned to face me, leaned in to press a soft, quick kiss at the base of my throat. Even then I felt a little trill of energy shoot down between my legs.

“Because you’re so much hotter when you’re down here in the mud with me, Schatzi.”

 

I touched my throat where he’d kissed me, my skin still burning. He sighed and leaned against the driver side door, pulling me against his chest, his arms wrapped around me, our legs stretched along the seats. I was sleepy, and he cradled me so well, his hand dragging through my hair, pulling my ponytail free so he could comb through it more easily.

“You said you were afraid of being useless. So it’s time you get used to being a fuck toy, Rey,” he said, his voice strangely kind, soft. He bent to kiss my neck, my temple, his tongue running over the shell of my ear. “Because until you prove otherwise, that’s all you have to offer me.”


	12. Fireworks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a short little chapter before the next "Plot Point" :)

The rain drumming on the roof combined with a post climax stupor quickly made me drowsy and I could feel her going limp in my arms as well, head nodding, breaths lengthening. I reached into the back for something to eat and some water.

“How’s your ankle?” I asked, handing her the bottle. She took three quick sips and handed it back before shrugging.

“It hurts. I shouldn’t have tried walking on it.”

“Do you want something? Vicodin?”

It took her a long time to answer, finally shaking her head no.

“I’m sleepy enough. I’ll just get some rest.”

Without a word of encouragement from me she shifted onto her side, her knees pulled up as she snuggled into my chest, both of her hands tucked beneath her chin. Each of her exhales was a warm stream of air on my skin. She fit perfectly, but she was trembling.

“Can you cover me?” she murmured, and I saw that there were goosebumps on her arms.

I pulled the old afghan over her shoulders and wrapped my arms around her, my chin resting on the crown of her head and after a moment she stopped shaking. After another shift of her legs and twist of her hands and I could feel her settling in to sleep, a long low sigh leaving her lips.

She was right. It was OK to slow down, even to stop. It was OK to let her rest for a while before I dropped her off at The Farm, which I was absolutely going to do. I had to. It was the only move that made sense. I was using her for the payout, that was all.

But for now it was ok to sit in the silent dark and listen to her breathe, drinking in the sight, absorbing the warmth of her body curled against mine. It was OK to be soft for a moment when I knew she couldn’t see. And it wasn’t long before I realized how tired I was myself, before I decided that it was OK to fall asleep with her, imagining I could hold her like that forever.

 

 

We both slept through the night and after a stretch and a piss I got us back on the road. The sun had come out from behind the dark and broken storm clouds scattered across the pale sky threatening another round of rain, and for now we were making progress. If we headed north to the shore of Lake Erie, I was sure we could find somewhere, an old trailer or cabin or even a tent to stay in while she healed. The last thing I needed was her getting sick, hurting herself further, getting an infection. Laying low until the swelling went down seemed to be the best course of action. Besides, if I turned her in to the Farm with an injury or any sort of permanent damage, I was sure they would take that off the bounty. So they would get their precious cargo in pristine condition. Well, nearly pristine.

“What are you smiling about?” She asked.

She was wrapped in the afghan, the window opened a bit to let in the breeze, clean and fresh smelling from the rain. That was one benefit to the days long storms we had; they cleaned everything, wiped away the grime and waste and death that stuck to the world like a varnish. For a few hours after a soul shattering thunderstorm everything was fresh again, bright and clean.

“Can’t a guy smile without an interrogation?”

She snorted and turned away, resting her chin in her palm. We drove past fallow fields, shuttered farms, their equipment rusted and broken in the plowed earth, overgrown with weeds and vines.

“What do you miss most?” She asked.

“Money,” I said; triggering another noise of disapproval.

“I miss fireworks,” she said, looking down at her hands. “We used to go out to Long Island every Fourth of July and sit on the beach or on our friends’ boats right in the middle of the water.”

I didn’t say anything, unsure of why she would share such a thing with me. In this world we all clawed our way through, scrounging and scamming every day just to survive. Personal memories were a commodity, nostalgia a luxury. Information of any kind was valuable and could always be used against you. I certainly wasn’t worth spending it on.

“We were out on the water once, watching them on the boat. The water was still, like glass, and the town was far enough away that the explosions were nearly silent. So I dove in. They were amazing from under the surface, blurred and muted like watercolor paint.”

She went quiet again and the silence got as dark and dense as the sky. It was easy to imagine her so active and happy; spending the day at the shore, a little blue bikini, sunburn bloomed across her nose. The thought of it reminded me of the smell of freshly mowed grass, climbing the old oak tree in my grandmother’s lawn.

“ _Now_ what are you smiling about?” She asked, laughing.

“Just thinking about you in a bathing suit,” I said, giving her a sideways glance.

She huffed, snuggling up tighter in the blanket and my heart sunk. I didn’t want her to stop talking. It was the way her voice changed, how I could hear the little upturn of her lips, her words bubbly as she remembered how things used to be. It was a voice, an emotion that people didn’t have anymore. And hearing her laugh was like being splashed with a cool wave, unexpected, energizing. I didn’t think I’d ever heard her actually laugh. Why would she when she was stuck with me?

We were a one of a kind generation; old enough to remember life before the drop, young enough that we still had to live through the collapse, rebuilding in the aftermath. Things like fireworks and water skiing, bachelor parties and rollercoasters, they were relics of the past…for the average person at least. No one made any plans, had any dreams. There was no anticipation for the future, no time for dreaming. After the drop we were reduced to our animal instincts: wake up, find food, find shelter, stay warm and live to see the next day. And that alone was exhausting.

“Swimming,” I finally said, staring out at the pattern of streaks the windshield wipers left on the glass. “When I was in high school I was on the swim team. Back before…”

“…the drop…” she finished, adjusting her position so that she was facing me.

“Yeah,” I lied, “before that.”

Actually, I was in prison when shit crumbled. We sat in the common room and watched it all collapse on television, the fiery riots, the declaration of martial law, the economy nose diving. Then they told us the prisons were disappearing but the prisoners weren’t, because desperation needed to be punished. Before long we were four guys in a cell, then eight. After a year of living like sardines they told us that the “format of incarceration” was changing. Anyone serving a sentence of less than ten years would be gradually released to the ankle monitor program. And those of us with access to Oxycontin and Xanax would be released from the monitor program almost immediately. Not officially of course. Snoke and Hux and Finn were released within weeks of me and we kept in touch for a while – when they needed something. But we were different, Snoke and I, with different plans for navigating the outside world.

“There’s still water…still pools…but it’s not the same,” I said. “That first dive into the cold, the burn in your shoulders after a sprint…”

She had no response for a minute. I didn’t expect it to make sense to her. I didn’t expect sympathy.

“When’s the last time you swam?” She said.

“A long time,” I muttered. “Too long.”

“It’s still warm out,” she said. “Maybe you’ll get a chance soon enough.”

 

 

REY -

 

He pulled off the expressway and took out the paper map again, his brow furrowed in concentration as he drew his finger along different lines, his lips moving as if he were talking to himself. And all I could do was picture him swimming, his broad shoulders and long legs slicing through the water, muscles glistening wet, mouth open as he drew in air. I could even picture him smiling and happy in victory, a medal around his neck. He must have been beautiful.

We pulled onto a dirt road and I could see water ahead, spread along the horizon, the sun sparkling on the tiny rippling waves. He drove through a tiny town, most of the buildings boarded up, stores and restaurants abandoned. A few cottages stood along the main street, people sitting outside tending to campfires or just enjoying the clear skies.

“Here we go,” he said quietly, pulling onto a narrow causeway with calm water on either side, the asphalt cracked and riddled with potholes. A sign ahead said “Presque Isle” and the causeway opened to an island, lush with weeds and wildflowers and nearly empty.

He drove slowly around the perimeter of the island, as if we were sightseeing, stopping and staring at various properties, looking down long stone driveways through overgrown shrubs. The houses were few and far between but nearly every one was occupied or showed signs of life - clothes drying on a line, a smoldering camp fire, fresh stacks of wood stored against the wall. It was getting hot, the middle of the day with the sun straight overhead when he pulled off the road and stared, his eyes narrowed to focus on something I couldn’t make out.

“Wait here,” he said, getting out of the car.

As if I could do anything else. The rumble of the uneven road on my ankle had been agony, so much so that I considered asking him for another Vicodin, or maybe some of the weed he’d smoked the other day…anything to numb it, but I wasn’t in the position to beg for favors. He tramped into what looked like the woods, but was actually a heavily overgrown driveway. He fought through low hanging branches and disappeared into the trees for a moment before crouching and crawling his way back out.

“An old fishing camp; really small and almost totally looted, but it’s empty.”

He backed the car into an overgrown thicket of trees, blocking most of it from the road. Then he picked me up, carrying me into the tiny white cottage. It couldn’t have been meant for any more than two people. There was a small kitchen, all the doors pulled off the cabinets, appliances torn out of the wall, and a bathroom with an old iron tub. The rest of the cabin was a single room: a double bed in the corner stripped of linens, a couple of end tables and a single wooden chair. He spread out a blanket and set me on the bed then left to move the rest of the things we’d packed into the house. Once the bags and boxes were inside he stood in front of me with his arms crossed, staring. His shirt was dark with sweat and he wiped off his face with the edge of it.

“How’s your ankle?”

“It hurts, but I’m fine,” I said, unable to look him in the eye, feeling foolish and young, someone caught in the midst of I Told You So.

But instead of giving a speech he stepped forward and brushed my hair back from my face, frowning when he rubbed his fingers together.

“You’re sweating. And pretty pale. I think you’re in more pain than you want to let on. You want another Vicodin?”

I could have argued that I was as tough and strong as he was, that he didn’t exactly look like a million bucks himself. I could have told him that I wanted to help set up camp, that I was a grown up and didn’t need his help; but I’d already proven that going with my gut instincts resulted in disaster nearly a hundred percent of the time. So instead I nodded, looking down at the floor. He tipped my chin up and the gentleness of the gesture reminded me of how his fingers could do magic, how he wasn’t always the monster I imagined.

“You want to make it out here by yourself? You want to run away and be on your own little mouse? Let me tell you something. Stop worrying about what people think of you, what people want for you. _Take_ what YOU want, _make_ others give you what you want, and you give them what YOU think they deserve.”

He turned away and took out a bottle of water and two pills.

“You think I deserve these?” I asked, taking them from his open palm.

“No,” he said smiling as he watched me gulp down the water. “But if I’m going to take what I want, I need you feeling better. Fast.”

He pushed me down onto my back and arranged my legs on the bed, carefully taking the boot off my good foot before propping my injured ankle up on a rolled up blanket. The pressure on my injury released and I immediately felt a bit better.

“Go to sleep,” he said. “I’ll try and get this place into some sort of living order.”


	13. Swim

KYLO

 

The house had to have been closed up for months, but it was sturdy. I was surprised that no one had claimed it although it clearly had been scavenged; there was no insulation and the cupboards were basically empty but for a few old dusty cans of fruit and vegetables and some beat up pots and pans. But these parts of the country fell a lot later than the inner cities. People lived in denial thinking if they didn’t live in Manhattan or Chicago or LA or Atlanta that everything was ok. They just kept living life, ignoring the food riots, the racial tensions, the governmental brutality. You could go to your cabin on Lake Erie and pretend summer vacation was still a thing. There were a few pictures on the walls, old paperback books, a yellowed newspaper that was two years old. I opened the windows to let fresh air in off the lake. We were deep in the trees, raspberry bushes and black eyed susans overgrown in the little “yard” out front, wild grape vines twisting their way up the birch trees, nearly hiding the short path down to the water, now reduced to nothing but a narrow dirt trail.

But I could see it; the sparkling surface of the water, calm in mid day, the gentle sound of tiny waves lapping up on the stony beach. It brought back a flood of childhood memories; wading into the lake, the cracked shells of zebra mussels cutting into my feet as I made my way out deeper where I could swim nearly a quarter mile before getting tired, my legs tangled in tall growing seaweed grabbing at me from beneath the surface. Just the smell of it, the clean air, the trees, the residual smoke of dead campfires was invigorating. For a moment I felt optimistic. What if we just stayed here? Was there a way to make this home? Would she stay?

When I was sure she was passed out I went to find some firewood and try and break through the trail. Snapping off some branches and pulling down curtains of vines revealed a wider path and I made my way down to the shore where an old pier made of cracked and splintered sun-faded wood jutted out a few yards into the lake. Weeds grew up through the planks, water splashing up through with each wave that came in. This part of the island was set in the shallows, a tiny cove etched out of the north end with a huge oak tree shading the little bay we were situated in. I was pulled like a magnet to the lapping edge, my boots crunching over old shells, rocks and garbage. Still, the water looked clear and clean, welcoming. I found a few smooth, flat stones and skipped them over the surface. Unable to resist any longer, I stripped down and walked in.

 

REY

 

It was early evening when I woke up; the tiny cottage cast in gold tinged shadow. He’d moved me onto a sleeping bag on the floor at some point. Then, while I slept he’d cleaned up, swept the floors and opened the windows, letting out the musty smell and filling the rooms with fresh air. He’d stripped away the old, musty bed linens and covered the mattress with the other sleeping bag and the old afghan. Two of our hoodies were rolled up to serve as pillows. I sat up, leaning against the side of the bed and watched him, crouched in front of the fireplace, building a tiny pyramid of sticks around a growing flame. He was barefoot, only wearing his boxer briefs, his hair wet and slicked back from his face, his beard darker with another day’s growth. Beside him on the floor was an old dented aluminum pan filled with water.

“The water’s pretty clean, but I figured we should boil it just to be sure,” he said, staring into the growing fire. It highlighted the strong angle of his jaw, the lean curves of his biceps. He looked rugged and strong. “Then we can fill up the empty bottles, cap ‘em, keep them set in the mud in the lake overnight and it will chill them a bit.”

“Did it rain?” I asked, pulling my sweatshirt over my head, feeling grimy and hot in the closed up room.

“I took your advice and went for a swim while you slept. Felt good.”

He turned then and crawled towards me, his eyes glinting in the low light, moving like a jungle cat, the corner of his mouth turned up in an alluring smile. I was self-conscious, embarrassed at how I must look, especially after a run through the woods, a fall in the mud; a day in the car, and there he was, crouched in front of me, shining clean, his eyes bright and awake, smelling like the woods, the earthy metallic smell of lake water. When he reached out to put a hand on my leg I inched backwards, pressing against the old metal frame of the bed. He frowned, his eyes going dark.

“Still trying to run,” he said, standing up.

He strode across the room in three long steps and rifled through his bag, looking for a cigarette that he lit from a piece of kindling held to the fire. For a moment I watched the hawk on his shoulder ripple and move as he smoked, shaking his head, flicking spent ash out the open window, blowing smoke towards the trees. All it took was one reaction from me, a wordless move based on instinct, and all the good will in the room was gone. For a hardened criminal he was, perhaps, the most sensitive person I’d ever met. I pulled myself up to sit on the edge of the bed, running my hands through my hair in a feeble attempt at grooming.

“I wasn’t trying to run, Kylo. It was…you were…” while I searched for the words he looked at me over his shoulder, an eyebrow raised in mistrust. “You look so clean. You smell fresh. I feel like a piece of road kill and I probably smell just as good. I was just…embarrassed. I’m tired of feeling like…looking like a stray dog. It’s hard to…be in the mood for…anything when I feel like this.”

He nodded and looked out the window again, finishing his smoke, but making no effort to soothe my insecurities, no reassurances that I was perfectly beautiful and strong just how I was, no risqué comments on my smell or appearance. Once he flicked the spent butt of the cigarette into the fire he fished out another Vicodin and gave it to me.

“I just…I just took two a couple hours ago.”

“It’s fine," he said, rolling his eyes. "It won’t kill you, and I don’t have enough for you to get hooked anyway. The world’s falling apart. Get high. Live a little.”

I did as he asked, then ate a few bites of the jerky and drank a bottle of water, watching him move around the tiny house, in and out of the small kitchen where he’d found two faded and warped Tupperware bowls and then into the tiny windowless bathroom where he found a few candles, burned down to only two or three inches tall. After lighting them he set two in the bathroom and one on the broken kitchen counter. He brought me a stack of brittle, ancient books and a flashlight.

“Gonna try and clean up the bathroom a bit,” he said. “Get some more rest.”

I was in a daze, half asleep when he started coming and going from the house. He was boiling water on the fire…more than I thought we needed to fill the handful of empty bottles we had. My eyelids were heavy and my mind foggy from the hunger and the pills so I couldn’t be sure how many times he walked down to the waters’ edge, but before too long I felt his hand on my shoulder.

“Sit up.”

Still only partly awake, I did what he asked without hesitation, following orders through a fog. He pulled my shirt over my head and threw it to the side, then scooped me up in his arms and carried me into the bathroom. It was dark, but he’d lit the tiny pillar candles so I could see that he’d cleaned and filled the old cast iron tub with a few inches of warm water and set a chair in front of it. Without a word he unfastened my bra, sliding the straps off my shoulders; then unbuttoned my jeans and pulled them down, leaving me in nothing but my underwear and homemade splint.

“Sit.”

There was a chill in the air and it woke me completely, my nipples hardening in the breeze from the open windows, goosebumps rising on my arms.

“What are…”

“Shhh,”

He pushed my head forward, over the side of the bathtub and poured a bowl of warm water over my hair, once, twice, three times. I could see little bits of dirt and debris floating in the tub and he moved to scrub my scalp with his fingers, rubbing half a bar of soap over my hair. The feeling was luxurious, breathtaking, a combination of the warm water and his gentle massage amplified a thousand times by the drugs in my system. But he didn’t say anything, no smart remarks when a moan escaped my lips, no jokes when he told me to ‘bend over’, just quiet Kylo, working to clean my hair and scrub soap into the back of my neck and on my shoulders. With a few more bowls of water he rinsed most of the soap out of my hair and wrapped it in one of his clean t-shirts, twisting a little turban on the top of my head.

“Stand up,” he said. “Wait here.”

I stood and he moved the chair out of the way, then went out to the fireplace and brought back the pan full of water that had been heating beside it.

“Good girl,” he said, lathering up his hands with the same herbal, woodsy smelling soap that he’d washed my hair with. I recognized it from the bathroom in the abandoned house.

Again, he went silent, holding each of my arms out and washing them, scrubbing every inch, even my armpits and under my nails. His slippery hands lingered on my breasts, twisting and teasing my nipples with a tiny grin on his face. I felt lightheaded, warm and floaty as he worked his way lower, running his fingers over my stomach and hips, down each of my legs. He sat me down again and pulled up my one healthy foot and washed it, massaging his knuckles into the arch and between each toe. Again I moaned at the unexpected pleasure and again he had no response.

“Hold on to me,” was all he said, lifting me up to stand.

I stood and braced myself with hands on his shoulders as he knelt in front of me, pulling my underwear down and helping me to step out of it. Dipping his hands back in the warm, soapy water he eased my legs apart and slipped his hand between them, his slick, warm fingers working between the folds of my pussy, water and soap mixing with my own building wetness. The pad of his finger pressed against my clit and I stumbled forward, a tiny whimper escaping my lips. Then he suddenly stood, taking his hands from me, leaving me trembling, covered in soap. He pulled me up into his arms and took me out of the bathroom, out of the house, into the dusky backyard before setting me down on my feet, standing on another t-shirt that he’d spread on the grass.

“Stand still, mouse,” he said. And for some reason, hearing him use that name, any term of endearment, slowed my heart rate, calmed any worry or self consciousness I may have had from being outside, naked in the dark. I was tired and dreamy but at the same time aware of everything; the feel of the soap bubbles sliding down my skin, the warmth of his hands on my arms, his breath on my shoulder.

For a moment he was gone, but then I felt his heat behind me again and he held up the pan of water, pouring it over my head, letting it trickle over every part of me. Two or three more rounds of that and once I was rinsed off, he wrapped his arms around my wet body from behind, his lips near my ear.

“Now you have no reason to hide,” he said, grinding his hips against mine. “Nice and squeaky clean.”

His left arm wrapped around my shoulders while the other roamed downward, tickling, teasing between my thighs.

“Oh god...Kylo…I can’t..I can’t stand up.”

“I’ve got you. You won’t fall. I’ve got you.” He worked his fingers slowly, hot slippery circles, easing my trembling legs apart. “Don’t I always take care of my little mouse?”

My head fell back against his shoulder and he bent his neck to kiss me, his tongue warm, twisting with mine, slow and languid, his thumb stroking my cheek. A cool breeze wafted between us and I shivered, leaning further into his embrace.

“Kylo…”

He took his hand away and picked me up, carrying me into the house, laying me back on the bed. The room was warm and the air through the open windows felt soft, refreshing against my damp skin. Everywhere his fingers touched me felt alive and tingling with energy as his hands ran down my arms, over the ridges of my ribs, the flat plane of my stomach. And then I felt his lips, the wet of his tongue on the bone of my hip, his lips sucking a bruise in the tender skin of my inner thigh. He crouched between my legs and spread them and I looked down to see his eyes staring up at me as he held them apart.

“You feel better, my clean little mouse?”

His words were puffs of warm air against my pussy. I arched my back and twisted my hips, trying to push against his mouth.

“Yes,” I said, the end of the word drawn out, a sigh between my teeth.

I wanted to know what it was like, I wanted to feel him licking, sucking, his tongue inside me. His hands were strong though, holding me still, a rabbit in a trap; and I could only see his eyes glittering in the purple twilight that slanted through the window. He placed a small, warm kiss at the top of my mound then pulled away, his fingers digging deeper into the skin of my thighs.

“You’re not going to run away from me anymore, are you, Goody Two Shoes?”

A single fingertip ran up and down through my wetness, slow, feather light, nothing but a tease, a reminder that he was there…that he _could_ give me what I needed. My nerves were on fire, straining for more, more friction, more pressure.

“Please,” I said, pushing my hips forward.

“You don’t even know what you’re asking for, Schatzi,” he said, two of his fingers moving with a bit more purpose, working a bit deeper, opening me up. “Answer my question and I’ll lick you. Is that what you want?”

I nodded, whining, writhing. And then he took it all away. His mouth, his hands, his finger…gone. He was above me, his face an inch from mine as he licked his bottom lip.

“I’ll ask you again. You’re not going to run away from me anymore, are you, Goody Two Shoes?”

“No,” I answered, my voice small and unsure. He kissed my mouth, my neck.

“Every time you run away, you end up hurting yourself and every time, I end up having to come rescue you.” He slid down further, kissing my collarbone, my stomach, the little hills of my hipbones. “I’m not supposed to be the hero Schatzi.” After placing a kiss right at the top of my pussy he chuckled, his eyes lifting to meet mine. “So what do you say?” He asked, tipping his head to the side and looking intently between my legs, two of his fingers running up and down. My heartbeat was hard and fast enough that I was sure he could hear it outside my body. I didn’t want to answer questions…I wanted come, but I knew he wasn’t going to let it go. So I thought for a minute, wondering what he could possibly want and then murmured,

“I’m sorry.”

He nodded and lowered himself. I sighed, letting my head fall back as his tongue touched my waiting open lips. The room was silent but for the small, wet sounds of his kisses, his tongue dragging through my wetness and dipping inside before coming up to circle my clit, the sensation making my back arch off the bed, my hands fisting the blanket as I pushed against him. It was the most gentle he’d ever been with me, lapping up my juices, humming against my skin. I closed my eyes and focused on the feel of it, the warmth and softness, how it sent waves of pleasure through my bloodstream, my muscles pulsing and twitching with ecstasy as I tumbled toward the edge of the cliff.

“I can be soft, if that’s what you want,” he murmured, his voice so quiet it was almost to himself. Then he dragged his tongue deep between my legs and I cried out again, reaching down to sink my fingers into his hair. He held tight to my hips, working each of my legs over his shoulders as he thrust his tongue deep inside again before sliding out to circle my clit, sucking it between his lips. I bucked and panted, pushing towards his face, but he held me exactly where he wanted so he could tease me with light, fruitless swipes of his tongue, feather light kisses on my slick smeared thighs. When I whined, twisting in his iron grip he looked up, eyebrows raised in innocent confusion that absolutely didn’t match the crooked grin on his lips.

“I thought you wanted me to be nice, Schatzi? I would never want you to feel _dirty_ , _”_ he said, running his fingertips through the thatch of dark hair between my legs.

“I…Kylo…”

He slid up my body and kissed my mouth, deep and slow, his tongue slipping and twisting over mine. While his cock rubbed against my pussy with a slow, lazy roll of his hips, he brushed his nose over my temple. I tried to arch up against him, to find some relief, friction, but he gave nothing but whispering kisses along my jawline.

“But you wanna know what I think, baby?”

In a flash he was up on his knees grabbing my hips. He easily flipped me onto my stomach, yanking me up onto all fours. The pain in my ankle was blinding and I cried out in agony, fisting the blanket, head hanging between my arms as I caught my breath. He draped his huge body over mine, his warm chest pressed to my spine, mouth near my ear.

“I don’t think you want nice,” he hissed, licking his way down my back, one hand pushing down between my shoulders while keeping my hips high. “I think you want it dirty.”

Crouching down behind me he once again lashed at my pussy with his hot tongue, sucking my clit while pumping three thick fingers inside me. I whined with need, pushing back onto his hand as the almost painful stretch and fullness pushed me once again towards the edge. I couldn’t speak, every muscle in my body tensing as he worked me over, his tongue dragging up to tease the bud of my ass.

“Come on my hand. Let me feel it. Come on good girl,” he crooned, kissing the small of my back. “You want to come for me, don’t you?”

All I could do was nod. He pulled is hand away and I felt the blunt head of his cock pressing forward, sliding easily through my folds.

“I know you better than you think,” he grunted between thrusts, his fingers digging into my hips. “You want me to drag you down in the mud,” he growled. “You want me to hold you down when I fuck you, tell you what to do, how to move. You want me to bruise you, to pull your hair…”

I whined as he did just that, my damp hair wrapped around his hand, yanking me backwards into his chest. As he continued his relentless rhythm, muttering his filth into my ear, I could feel my orgasm bubbling to life, the ache in my blood, the heat between my legs. Everything was gone but the feeling of him moving inside me. There was nothing but that deliciously wrong bliss. I rolled my hips backwards trying to get more friction and he reached down to circle my clit with two fingers while huffing short, hot breaths in my ear.

“You want me this way because then when I make you come, you don’t have to feel guilty for wanting a filthy criminal like me. Because you didn't have a choice.”

With that he pushed me flat into the mattress, pistoning against my hips for his last grunting thrusts. I held tight to the iron headboard and howled through my climax like a beast in heat, repeating his name over and over.

“Fuck… _fuck_ Rey,” he groaned as he gave one last deep push, emptying inside me.

There was something soft and quiet in the way he’d said my name, my actual name in the throes of his orgasm. No nickname, no ‘baby’, just Rey. I felt it warm in the pit of my stomach when it rolled off his lips.

He caught his breath, still sunk deep inside me, and propped himself up on his forearms to kiss the space between my shoulder blades.

“So tight…so good…” he breathed, rolling off of me and onto his side. He knocked into my splint as he did so and I flinched. “Sorry,” he said, reaching down and closing his hand around my swollen ankle, just lightly, an acknowledgment of the pain.

“It’s ok,” I said, pulling the blanket up around my chest. “It’s getting better I think.”

 He nodded and threw a hand over his eyes, still breathing heavily, his other hand stroking my bare stomach, occasionally dipping down to the little mound of hair between my legs. Gentle touches, comforting.

Turning on a dime.

“I know you better than you think, too,” I said, turning onto my side to face away from him. “You think that you _have to be_ rough and cruel with me. You think that you have to keep me locked up or drugged or monitored because you don’t think I would let you near me otherwise. You don’t think you’re worth someone staying with you, giving themselves to you.” I turned back over to see him staring at me, his lips in deep frown, brow furrowed. “And I don’t think your heartcould handle the rejection if someone you really wanted ever told you no.”

He was silent, eyes glinting with an angry energy in the dark room. I would have liked to have cuddled on his chest like I had in the car. It had felt more intimate than anything else we’d done since the beginning of this stupid road trip from hell and it was easier to keep warm with his arms around me. But after a moment he huffed out a sigh of frustration and got out of bed, rifling through his bag to find a cigarette.

“Go to sleep,” he said, pushing the door open with enough force to knock it against the wall. “I’m going to have another swim.”


	14. Stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience guys! I was on a long vacation visiting my parents and then I had to complete a piece for a fic fest so I was under some pressure...but I think we're back on track. :)

I woke up before him, thirsty, my head aching from dehydration, muscles aching from…something else entirely. My skin was covered in sweat, the smelly wool blanket stuck to my skin. Sun poured through the grimy windows, the air itself heavy and humid…stagnant. I tested my ankle, flexing my foot, turning it side to side. It was stiff, a dull pain but nothing like it had been the day before. Beside me, Kylo was on his back with his arm thrown over his head, the blanket riding low on his hips, revealing his pale, broad chest rising and falling with slow breaths. He needed a shave, but the shadow of hair on his jaw made him appear softer somehow, more approachable. His lips were parted, fluttering a bit on each exhale and even his hands, usually clenched or pointing or gesturing with power and force, were loose, palms exposed, fingers curled slightly. I moved to sit up and he huffed in his sleep, rolling onto his side, his arm reaching out to find me.

“Mmm,” he said. “No, stay here.”

His words weren’t forceful, he wasn’t commanding; still I lay back down on my side, facing his closed eyes.

“I’m…I need something to drink, I’m thirsty,” I said. “Did you fill the water bottles?”

He said nothing, his hand warm on my hip, breaths slow and deep. When he didn’t answer I reached out and traced the outline of his lips with the tip of my finger, the length of his scar, the angle of his brow. Again I imagined him in a different world, one where he could have kept swimming, winning ribbons and trophies. He could have stayed in Boy Scouts, gone to college. What did he want to be? A lot of us had given up on thinking about things like that, planning for the future. There was no guarantee that the things you wanted would even exist. Travel agent? Model? Daycare owner? Graphic Designer? Most of these things became superfluous, unattainable. If you couldn’t live in a house with electricity or afford the next week’s food, you didn’t really care about what the new fall line was or the new exciting coffee creamer on the market.

“Kylo,” I whispered, running a finger over his dark lashes. “I need…”

His eyes opened, glittering a dark amber in the morning light. My hand still hovered near his face and he pursed his lips, kissing the inside of my palm. His lips were nearly irresistible. Everything seemed different after my “bath” the night before.

“I heard you. I just don’t want to get up,” he said, wetting his lips. “Christ, it’s hot.”

 He threw off the blanket, revealing his naked body, nearly glowing with a sheen of sweat and I let my eyes wander down between his legs. With a groan and a stretch he settled back on his pillow, eyes still closed, forearm thrown over his eyes to block out the sun. He’d never really given me a chance to just…look at him, take him in. When he fucked me it was always with a sort of impatience, setting a fevered pace that I could barely keep up with. It was always in the dark, his body draped over mine, shrouded in shadow. And yet part of what he’d said to me was right (although I was loathe to admit it) I DID like to feel his strength, his power. I liked to feel his weight pushing me down, his hands holding tight to my wrists as he thrust into me. In a world where nothing was permanent, it felt real. Solid. In a world where I was alone, seen as nothing more than an envelope of reward money, a bucket of spare parts, even to him; in that moment it made me feel wanted, protected, desperately needed. Whether it was true or an illusion didn’t matter, in the heat of our sex it felt real and he knew just what buttons to push to send me spiraling further into the feeling.

I reached out and put a hand on his rippled, muscled belly, the line of dark hair beneath his navel. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me against his side, kissing the inside of my wrist and sighing.

“You don’t need to jack me off for a drink of water,” he said with a frown, moving to get out of bed. “How’s the ankle?”

I reached for a t-shirt on the floor and slipped it over my head, putting both feet down.

“It’s better I think…I could probably…” I put a bit of weight on it, wincing, but the nauseating agony of the previous days was gone.

He stepped over and slipped his arm around my waist, pulling me against him, and I limped over to the chair.

“Good…good,” he said, staring out the window.

He seemed to be pondering something and that look always made me nervous. But when he turned to look at me the roles were reserved. He wouldn’t meet my eye, rubbing at the back of his neck, still brazenly nude but looking a bit unsure.

“Water bottles are down by the shore. It’s hot, muggy up here. The water feels great and I bet it would feel good on that ankle.”

“Oh,” I said, trying to stand. “I…might need help…”

He crouched down in front of me and then turned away.

“Go ahead, hop on,” he said. “I’ll carry you down.”

 

 

**KYLO**

 

She was light, her thighs damp with sweat, hot around my waist as I carried her down to the water’s edge. It was far easier to carry her on my back and I liked the feeling of her body pressed into my skin, her arms tight around me.

“It’s beautiful,” she said as I set her gingerly on the tiny stone beach.

She bent over and rifled through the broken zebra mussel shells, gathering a few pretty ones into a pile like a child would, holding them up to the sun, calling out when she found one whole, its stripes bright. She didn’t know it was an invasive species, destructive, unwelcome. She didn’t know she was supposed to be disgusted, she just liked what she saw.

“My mother told me about how there used to be shells on the beaches in Cape Cod,” she said. “All different colors and shapes. She’d collect them up and mount them in frames. She had earrings made from razor clams.”

I nodded and dug the water bottles out of the cool mud, rinsing them off before handing her one. We used to store our drinks at the edge of the lake when camping; mom called it “natures cooler” and I remember running down to the shore each morning, dipping my toes into the icy water, energized by the shock of it.

Before she could head into the lake I crouched down and took the ankle monitor off as well as the cuff around my wrist, setting them on a rock out of the way. She watched in silence, the playful giggles and childlike smiles of before gone as she realized for a moment she was entirely free. But I could tell by the way she’d limped, how she’d leant against me just to walk a few steps in the cabin that she wasn’t running anywhere. Still I stood and held her jaw in my hand, looking her in the eye.

“You remember what you promised me last night, Schatzi, don’t you?”

“I’m not going to run. I can’t run. You don’t need to keep me on a leash, Kylo.”

“We’ll see.” I snorted and let go of her face. “Come on then,” I said, wading in to my ankles. “Strip off, mouse.”

She didn’t even hesitate, dropping my t-shirt on the beach and limping into the water. The cut on her face was healing and wouldn’t leave a scar like mine, but the rest of her thin frame was dotted with bruises; her wrists, her throat, dark finger prints on the bones of her hips. I should have felt bad for marking her like I did, sucking bruises into the flesh of her breasts, the hills of her collarbones; but seeing her like that only made me remember how she felt beneath me, the way she writhed and squealed. Seeing her marked by me only made me want her more.

“It’s freezing Kylo!” She said, but she was smiling, and it was the way she said my name that made my heart beat a bit faster.

When she got in up to her knees I swam back and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her out deeper, until the water was too deep to stand. She screamed and weakly beat her little fists on my chest but still, there was that smile and I found myself memorizing every curve of it: the way her eyes squinted, her lips a little lopsided, the pearly white of her teeth. Her smiles were quick, brief flashes of light, like you were lucky to catch them, and she always ducked her head, looking up from under her lashes, shaking her head, as if embarrassed to show any sort of happiness in front of me. I let her go and she splashed me.

“Asshole,” she said, gliding away.

“You have to jump in fast. You were just prolonging the agony, Schatzi.”

She rolled her eyes, ducking under the surface and slicking her hair back from her face.

“What is your plan now?” She asked.

I saw how the light went from her eyes when she asked, her bottom lip pulled between her teeth. Chicago was less than day’s drive from Presque Isle and she wanted to know her fate. Had she spread her legs well enough to be granted a reprieve? To be fair, I thought her ankle was in worse shape, that she’d need more time to heal, so I'd planned on staying in the cottage for a week. I didn’t want to return her to The Farm damaged in any way.

“We drove by a functioning market on the way in,” I said, swimming out a few strokes away from her just to feel the sun prickling on my back, to stretch my shoulders, to stop looking at her eyes in the light. “Might actually have some fresh food, vegetables. We could get some supplies…”

“Oh,” she said, kicking over to me. There were drops of water on her eyelashes, her lips wet and plump. “Are we…are we staying here?”

“Not forever,” I said, stepping closer to her. I wanted her again. I wanted to bury my face between her legs, feel her come on my tongue. She could deny it until the day we died but every time I touched her she was wet for me, warm and slick. Every time she insisted she couldn’t come, she was howling a second later. “But you still need a day or two to heal. I can’t be carrying you around everywhere.”

I liked the quiet of the island though; not looking over my shoulder, building fires, hearing the water lapping up on the shore. My father had been a carpenter…a good one. I could fix up the fishing cabin…maybe even add onto it. I could do those things in another life, in a life where I wasn’t Kylo Ren.

We swam for a bit longer, the water warming up. She asked me for help with her freestyle stroke and wanted me to demonstrate the butterfly. She attempted a handstand, her long legs waggling and unsteady, golden in the sunlight. But I was getting hungry and it was starting to get hot. I gave her one last splash and headed for the shore, but she swam up beside me and blocked my path.

“What?” I asked, looking down at her with an eyebrow raised.

“Thank you,” she said, stepping forward. And with another one of those lightning flash smiles she went up on her toes and kissed me, pressing her body against me, wrapping her floating legs around my hips. I knew what she was doing, but still it felt good. It was the first time she’d ever kissed me without being told, without being forced. I slipped my tongue between her lips, one arm tight around her waist, the other on the back of her neck.

Two days. She would be healed in two days. Three at the most.

And she was absolutely going back. The bounty for her was twenty thousand dollars. It was life changing. The money was. The _money_ would change my life.

She was definitely going back.

 

 

**REY**

 

He kissed me deeper, his arm wrapping tighter around me as his lips moved to my jaw, the skin beneath my ear, my throat. I held tight to his shoulders, my fingers digging deep into his wet hair. The hand on my waist slipped down, over my ass and between my legs, his finger easily slipping inside.

“Do you remember when I said you didn’t have to jack me off for a dink of water?” He asked, nudging his thick, hard cock against my pussy as he pulled his hand away, dragging a line of my wetness up the length of my spine. The sun prickled at my skin, goosebumps rippling on my arms. “I think maybe I changed my mind.”

I froze and pulled back, unhooking my legs from his hips, letting go of his hair. When I looked up he was smiling but instantly it fell into a pout of disappointment as he swam away, striding out of the water and clipping on the tracker cuff.

“I was kidding Schatzi. Come on, we need to go buy food.”

 

Everything he said was a test.

 


	15. Alone

**REY**

 

The market/supply store/hotel/meeting house he’d seen was about two miles from our little fishing shack and we drove there in silence, with Kylo still bitter that I hadn’t enjoyed his little joke and me picking at my cuticles, feeling a bit sick to my stomach the closer we got to civilization. The meeting place was bound to be filled with strangers; desperate strangers. If anyone in this tiny town had access to the oldweb they’d no doubt have seen my picture and the large sum of money advertised beneath it. I imagined I had a little bit of leverage with Kylo. But a stranger wouldn’t hesitate to turn me in.

“It’s like you’re bringing a leg of lamb into a bear pit,” I muttered as he opened the passenger door for me, letting me lean on him to limp up the walkway.

“Keep your head down and don’t cause a scene and you’ll be fine,” was the only reassurance he gave me. “My quiet little mouse in the corner.” He put a hand on the small of my back and guided me in the door of the ramshackle looking diner.

Thankfully it wasn’t as busy as I thought it might be. There were a few people sitting at a counter drinking coffee, looking at a map while another group of three sat at a table chatting merrily; a cheerful little family breakfast. A door behind the counter swung open and a girl close to my age slithered out smiling wide.

“Are you looking for a place to stay?” She asked, looking Kylo over like he held the secret to her salvation. “My mom and dad own the place and I know we have a few rooms upstairs and a tent out back. I could see if one’s available while you eat.”

She didn’t even look at me. Meanwhile Kylo was standing there smiling like Miss America.

“No need for all that sweetheart,” Kylo purred as he rubbed little circles into my back. “Just passing through. But what do you think about lunch, Schatzi, you hungry?” He asked, as if I had any choice in what I did from one hour to the next.

I nodded and found myself stepping closer to him, letting him touch me, claim me. When his arm slipped around my waist, settling low on my hip I found myself surging with inexplicable pride. The girl looked at me and I was fairly sure she rolled her eyes. We were the same age, but she knew what to do with the assets God gave her. And he’d clearly given her…more…assets. Her shirt was at least two sizes too small, tits pushed up and out as if presenting them for inspection. She wore heavy, dark make up: long black eyelashes that she batted and winked, shiny rose colored lip gloss that glimmered when she smiled at Kylo. And he made no pretense about enjoying the show. Why should he? I must have looked like a stray dog next to her, the same clothes I’d worn for two days, no makeup, no jewelry. We’d only been there ten minutes and I could tell she was formulating a plan to kick me right out of the picture. So I laced my fingers into Kylo’s and he looked down at our hands, then at me, a smirk on his face, one eyebrow raised.

“Head on over then and grab a seat” she said, leaning over the counter. “I’ll send mom over.”

He winked at her and flashed his wide, charming smile before she turned away.

 

 

A few tables were occupied, folks mostly sitting and talking over coffee in mismatched cups, obviously locals from the way they all stared when we walked in. But the woman running the floor was nice enough and brought us two bottles of water as soon as we sat down.

“Hey folks. We don’t really have a menu per se, I just sort of throw together whatever we got in supply. Today I’ve got some turkey meatloaf with mashed potatoes, spaghetti and meatballs or roast chicken and vegetables.”

“Sounds delicious. We’ll have the chicken,” Kylo said, once again turning on the charm. “And coffee if you don’t mind.”

She nodded and smiled and toddled off to the kitchen. The more time I spent with him, the easier it was to see how he found success in the world. He new when to turn on the dark side and when to switch on the light. Unfortunately for me, I could never tell which I was going to get. I opened the bottle and drank down half of the icy cold water, some of it spilling down my chin, running down my neck.

“She was pretty,” I said, fiddling with the mismatched silverware.

“Who, grandma?” He asked, smiling.

“You know who I mean.”

“Awww, look at my little jealous mouse,” he said, squeezing my knee beneath the table, which I quickly slapped away. It wasn’t about jealousy. I wasn’t sure what it was about. But it wasn’t jealousy.

“I’m not really in the market for that shit,” he said, stretching his arms as he glanced around the room before pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. “Just eat your lunch and we’ll head back.”

"Here you go, dear."

The older woman brought us food on cracked china but it looked like a Thanksgiving feast to me…actual warm, steaming meat and vegetables after days, weeks, of eating protein bars and food from cans. Just smelling it was enough to give me hope for the future. People were still cooking, still growing food. People were still sitting around drinking coffee together, still laughing.

She scowled at Kylo’s cigarette but didn’t say anything. His money on the table was enough to shut her up. Enough money and some people will do anything.

 

 

In the corner of the “restaurant” was a table with an old desktop computer along with a collection of books and maps, paper and pens. The wall was covered with handwritten notes pinned up, things for sale, services, lost and found. A router box set up with some strange antenna paraphernalia let me know that they had access to the web here. Which meant they had access to the bounties; and suddenly the jovial groups sitting around chatting didn’t seem quite so precious anymore.

“So,” he began, when the silence became too heavy. “How did you meet Snoke and Hux?”

I pushed roasted potatoes around on my plate, keeping my head down. I’d eaten too much, too fast and my stomach was cramping. I was tired and my ankle hurt from walking too much too soon. The story of my life. The mention of his little prison pals made my nose sting, tears pricking up at the rims of my eyes. I shrugged, betraying the hurt I felt.

“No big story. I met Rose at a shelter. She was administering first aid and I asked her if she had any allergy medication to sell. Someone I was working for needed to get a hold of three months worth. She asked me about what I did and then suggested I come meet Snoke. He gave me a list of things and said if I could get them within three days that I could be their exclusive runner.”

“Lucky you,” Kylo said, rolling his eyes. There was something about Snoke he didn’t like. I noticed that the minute we walked into Kylo’s apartment. “What a possessive little prick he is. And you agreed to work for him exclusively? They were your only source of income? Your only support? Not too smart for a runner. What were you planning on doing once they left?” He asked, reaching over to take a potato off of my plate. The look on his face was a combination of amazement and concern, disbelief.

I pushed the plate towards him, giving him the rest of my food, and sat back, looking out at the line of dying, dried out pine trees running along the highway. He certainly knew how to get right to the exposed nerve.

“I didn’t know they were leaving,” I said, finally saying out loud what had made me so angry from the start; that they hadn’t told me. They’d made this plan to stockpile supplies with my help so they could leave for some amazing Utopia and they hadn’t even planned to cut me in on the deal. _I wanted to protect you_ Rose had said. From what? Fresh air? Stability? A warm bed? Thanks.

Kylo shook his head and folded his hands behind it, showing off the swirling black trail of stars on his bicep. Eleven, eleven stars. He sighed.

“Really? Because your best friend Rose knew. Hell, _I_ knew, and they never even mentioned your name, baby.” He leaned forward then, over the table. “Trust me; they were going to leave you behind. All alone.”

“Thanks Kylo, I know,” I said, wiping at my wet cheeks. “You don’t need to twist the knife.”

If I was waiting for sympathy it was going to be a long time. He rolled his eyes at me and started in on the rest of my meal.

“Rey. Fuck them," he said, his voice low, his eyes stuck on mine as if to really drive the point home. "Fuck the past and their plans and their perfect little island somewhere in the middle of nowhere U.S.A. They’ll die up there….if Snoke doesn’t kill them all first.”

"What do you care about what I do?" I asked, wiping a tear away. "Once we get to Chicago I'm out of your life anyway."

From the corner of my eye I watched a man stand up from the counter and head to the computer. The screen flickered to life.

 

 

**KYLO**

 

Without a word she got up and left the table, left the whole building, and my cuff beeped twice. I left a ten dollar bill on the counter and walked out after her, resisting the urge to scold her for running off, only to find that she’d limped over to the edge of the water, looking for stones and shells again.

“In a hurry?” I asked, standing a few feet away.

She shrugged but when I stepped closer I could see she’d been crying. And here I thought we’d had a nice lunch together. I stood behind her and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her back against my chest. She sighed.

“Thanks for letting me swim; for getting me out of the city for a bit. When I’m inside I’m not allowed to do anything even remotely dangerous…no sports, no swimming, no walking outside in the sunshine in case I get burnt. It’s like being in…” she stopped short and I laughed.

“No it’s not, baby. Trust me. What is it you’re looking for? Trying to make me feel bad for wanting to secure my future? The bounty is twenty grand, Schatzi. I could get out of the crime business for a good long while with that kind of cash. I could come back here with a case of whiskey and a pound of good weed and swim all day…maybe build furniture…learn how to hunt…”

She pulled out of my arms and started the trek up the little incline to the makeshift parking lot. When I met her at the car to unlock the door she looked up at me, her eyes wide with something like pity, giving me a little crooked grin before saying,

“And you’d still be alone.”

She took a nap when we got back to the house and I dug around in the overgrowth looking for firewood. What was the harm in being alone? I’d been alone for years now. When I was sent to prison my parents all but disowned me and when the walls started crumbling down I lost track of them completely. My father died, mom could still be out there somewhere. But as far as she was concerned I’d fallen to the dark side with no hope for redemption; a lost cause, a black soul.

I found a few flat, smooth stones and stood at the water’s edge skipping them along the calm surface. Being alone meant all of my choices were mine; all of the consequences were mine. The profits, the spoils, the money; the losses, the mistakes, the pain; being alone meant there was no one to tell me how wrong I was, to see me fail. Being alone was so much easier. There were no explanations to be made.

But the days were very long.

 

 

When I got back to the cabin she was in her bra and panties, sprawled on top of the bed asleep. She’d taken her hair down and it was damp and wavy in the humid afternoon heat. Before we left for lunch I’d wrapped her ankle in a makeshift brace but now it was off and I could see that the swelling had gone down, an ugly purple yellow bruise the only indication of her injury. I watched her rest for a while, the way her lips moved as she dreamed, her toes twitching every now and again. It was obvious she’d been looking for sympathy from me about her life at The Farm and my stubborn pride refused to give it. To her it may have felt like prison but it sure as fuck wasn’t. She wasn’t beaten within an inch of her life or had a cock forced down her throat on her first night. Still, I’d heard enough stories to know that it wasn’t a place that anyone deserved to be trapped in. But life wasn’t fair. We don’t always get what we deserve.

“What?” She murmured.

I hadn’t noticed that her eyes had opened and I wondered how long she’d been staring at me staring at her.

“This is quite a sight to come home to,” I said, running my hand up her leg.

Every time I told myself I’d had my fill of her, that just taking her virginity, just tasting her pussy, just getting her to touch herself for me would be enough, I was struck with another wave of want. It was a want that was different from the other fucks I’d had though. I wanted to see her face. I wanted to watch her chest flush pink when she was about to come. I wanted to hear her beg me for more, hear her breathe my name, feel her finger nails drag down my back. I wanted that tiny smile of contentment she had when we were done.

She sat up and yawned, stretching her arms and pulling her hair back into a knot. I stopped her, grabbing her wrist and squeezing until she dropped the little rubber band. Her cheeks turned pink in an instant and I saw the corner of her lips turn up.

“I like it down,” I said, running my fingers over her scalp before grabbing tight to the nape of her neck, her head tipped back.

With my other hand I ran my thumb over her plump bottom lip, so soft, warm from sleep. She didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away, so I slipped between her lips, into her mouth, thinking back to how she’d sucked the honey from my fingers so eagerly. Her eyes were locked on mine as she hollowed her cheeks, her tongue wrapped around my thumb and she put a hand on my stomach, her fingers splayed out like a starfish, her own thumb brushing over the hair below my navel.

I bent down to kiss her, moving her hand lower to make her feel the effect she’d had on me.

“Take them off,” I whispered against her lips. “Get me nice and hard for you.”

No protest, no shy little mouse; she pulled at the waistband of my briefs with one hand, tugging them down over my thighs.

“Go on good girl, touch it,” I said. “You know what to do.”

Her tiny little smile faltered for a moment, a furrow in her brow, but still she did as I asked, wrapping her hand around my shaft and stroking slow…tentative. I dragged my wet thumb across her mouth and along her jaw, my hand on the back of her neck, pulling her forward.

“Open up for me, mouse. I’ve been waiting a long time to feel this.”

“I’ve never…I…”

I put a bit more pressure on the back of her head and shushed her.

“You know how to suck baby. Just open your mouth and we’ll see what you can take.”

She inched forward and pressed her lips to the tip, her tongue flicking out to lick the underside and I groaned my approval.

“Open your legs, too,” I said, pushing at her thigh with my knee. “I want to see how wet you get from sucking me off.”

She whimpered as I sunk further into her mouth, nice and slow, and her hands went to my hips as she finally started to suck, her head bobbing back and forth.

“Oh that’s good, Rey,” I all but purred, reaching down to slip her bra strap from her shoulder, thumbing and twisting her nipple until she moaned. "So good."

Her hips rolled and she inched closer, taking more, her fingers sinking deep into my thighs. I pressed my knee in between her legs and she humped against it.

“Good girl, you know how to get what you need.”

She pulled back completely and looked up at me, her lips swollen and shining wet, one tit spilling from the cup of her white bra, legs spread wide. Disheveled and delicious she scooted backwards, lying back with her arms above her head, her eyes never leaving mine. I reached into her panties and pulled them to the side, making her twitch and moan as my finger ran over her clit.

“So wet,” I said, easily slipping two fingers inside. “Sucking dick gets you wet. What a fun little quirk you have, my little cock slut.”

She said nothing, her eyes closing as I stroked her, teeth dug into her bottom lip. I couldn’t wait any longer. Grabbing her hips, I easily sunk into her and began a slow, deep rhythm that made her back arch with every thrust. Still she said nothing, only staring into my eyes, her legs wrapped around mine, heels digging into the backs of my thighs.

She thought she was so smart. But she still hadn’t learned her lesson yet. You don’t hustle a hustler.

 

 

**REY**

 

I’d stripped down to my underwear as soon as he left the house looking for firewood, thinking I was taking a nap. The more we went out in public, the further we ventured out into the rest of the country, the more likely it was that someone would recognize my face. In a city crammed with millions of people I could blend in, but out here time was running out and it was clear from our little lunch date that appealing to his empathy wasn’t going to work. If he truly believed that all I had to offer him was being his fuck toy, then I would show him that I was one toy he couldn’t live without.

Besides, it felt good. I couldn’t deny that he turned me on the minute he touched me, the minute he looked at me with those dark, predatory eyes. And after years of running and working and surviving, I convinced myself that I deserved to feel good, even if I had an ulterior motive.

He held my thighs behind the knees, pushing my legs back as he thrust deep, pressing his lips to the bone of my swollen ankle in what seemed like a strange moment of affection. Before long I could feel that hot coil of energy twisting tight in my belly, I could feel goosebumps rippling on my arms as I reached up to stroke and twist my nipples as he picked up the pace, thrusting harder. When I gasped and caught his eye, he smiled.

“I see right through you mouse,” he panted, his fingers digging into my legs. “You forget I’ve been around a bit longer than you. You forget I know all the tricks.”

I pushed back to meet his thrusts, rolling my hips, my climax coming on fast, but he kept talking, even as I squirmed and whined, reaching down to touch myself, to feel where he slid inside me, hot and silky smooth.

“You can spread your legs as wide as you want, baby, I’m still taking you back.”

I broke apart, crying out his name, my muscles clenching around him, pulling him in deeper. I reached up to pull him down on top of me, to feel his chest pressed to mine; the rise and fall of his chest as he kept thrusting. He drove in, grinding his hips against mine and I clung to his back as he stiffened. His lips crushed against mine and he kissed me on his final thrust groaning into my mouth, his body trembling. He pulled away with a tugging bite on my bottom lip.

“I have to,” he breathed, his voice shaky, quiet, nearly to himself. “I have to bring you back. I can't keep you around. I have to bring you back.”

He collapsed on top of me as his orgasm subsided, his back slick with sweat, the whole room oppressively hot. We lay together in silence and I smiled as I stroked over his shoulder blades. He said he had to bring me back, but I could hear it in his voice.

He didn’t want to.

 


	16. Adrenaline

We stayed in the house for one more day. We swam for one more afternoon. We fucked for one more night and he fell asleep sprawled across the bed with this head on my stomach, his slow, even breathing warm on my skin. We cooked canned food in the fireplace and he talked about invasive species ruining the Great Lakes.

That was my favorite part; watching him talk about the different fish and plants that used to grow in the water, how he used to catch little orange newts and bumpy gray green frogs in the creek behind his house, keeping them in jars with sticks and leaves.

“I wanted to keep them forever. They were fascinating…those salamanders…so brightly colored and smooth, tiny little face, I just wanted to have it, to know it was mine,” he said, completely oblivious to the double meaning of his words. “But my mother would eventually let them go while I was at school. _Their own family misses them, B-“_ he stopped himself with a sip of water. “I mean...anyway she used to get rid of them.”

He talked about the Finger Lakes, created by the hand of God pressing into the land according to the Natives of the region. He reminisced about how his mother used to take him hiking and he listed off the names of his favorite birds. Kylo Ren was a criminal, drug dealing gangster from the city with a great love and appreciation for nature. Everything about him was soft as he talked about it. His smiles were easy, he talked with his hands…didn’t smoke once. It was like he was a different man, from a different time.

“You shouldn’t live in the city,” I said. “I can tell just looking at you that you’re in love with…the world, with nature. That’s where you’re meant to be. Its obvious.”

He didn’t like being called on his softness, his pull to the light, so he stood up and rolled his eyes at me, looking for the bottle of vodka he’d brought along. Story time was over.

 

Even as Kylo packed up our meager supplies I could tell he was hesitant to leave. For someone who had claimed to be simply “laying low” until we could head to Chicago, he’d done an awful lot to the little dilapidated shack. Everything was scrubbed clean; we could see through the old warped windows, the iron bathtub was white and nearly sparkling. He even took the time to clear the path down to the water, hacking at all the overgrowth and pulling out roots and rocks that blocked the way. During our stay in the shack I learned that he didn’t need much sleep. Perhaps part of it was paranoia, his need to be on alert at all times, but even when we were alone in the wilderness he would only sleep for a couple of hours before popping up again, stalking around in some self inflicted time crunch. I was almost tempted to lie, to tell him that my ankle was too injured to stand on, just to buy some time.

“Come on,” he said, standing over me the next morning when I woke up. “We’ll get some breakfast before we head out.”

 

Kindly grandma waved to us when we walked in and brought us two mugs of coffee before offering us pancakes and sausage. I had no appetite and after a few bites, Kylo ended up eating most of my breakfast.

“You never know when you’ll get home cooking again, little mouse.”

Actually, the only benefit of living at the Farm is the food; fresh fruit and vegetables, daily vitamins and cool clean water. They had a delicious apple cinnamon muffin in the Fall. We all saw it as sort of like how they used to fatten up geese to harvest their livers, or those cattle in Japan who get massages and beer before being slaughtered.

Kylo’s smug little smile added to my frustration and so I decided to poke at him.

“If I show up there pregnant you won’t get the bounty,” I lied looking him dead in the eye as I sipped my coffee. He’d trained me well. “Too much extra medical care and bodily risk for their assets.”

Kylo smiled and shook his head, shoveling half of a breakfast sausage in his mouth.

“You’re not pregnant, Schatzi.”

“And how would you know, doctor? I had my period last month for the first time in a while. Maybe I’m good and ripe," I said, patting my belly a bit too hard.

“First of all, don’t bite your bottom lip when you’re trying to tell a lie – its an easy tell. I mean, adorable, but easy.” He picked up his coffee mug and drained it. “Secondly, I’m shooting blanks.”

“What?” I sat back hard against the chair, the wind leaving my sails.

“No babies for Kylo,” he said, smiling. But a bit of the sparkle was gone from it, tension taking its place, his whole tone and expression a bit forced. “It was an option for early release. The prisons were getting full, not to mention the schools, hospitals, cities. Two years off my sentence if I got snipped.” He mimed scissors with his fingers.

“Kylo, that’s…my God that’s inhumane! It’s fucking…eugenics or something.”

“Oh little mouse, are you upset? Wanted to settle down in the country and raise a pack of pups with me?” The smile was gone and he wouldn’t look me in the eye.

“I just can’t believe they’d change your life, your autonomy so…permanently,” I said.

I could see the hurt in his eyes when he glanced back up, the soft underbelly that he worked so hard to try and hide flashing to the surface.

“You think prison didn’t do that already, mouse?”

“I know but…”

“Forget it, come on. We need to –“

“Hey there folks.”

Before Kylo could stand up there was a man at our table, a bit older than me but not by much, flicking a toothpick between his lips, his mouth curled in a lopsided grin that I found particularly menacing.

“Hey,” Kylo offered, no smile, no further words.

“You two were here the other night but I didn't get a chance to introduce myself,” the man said. “Miller. Ryan Miller," he said, holding a hand out that Kylo shook for less than five seconds. "I always notice new visitors. Especially the pretty ones.”

That time I could almost hear Kylo growling.

“Yeah, well we’re not stickin’ around,” he said, standing up and holding his hand out to me.

“Where you headed then?” The stranger asked, his tone light, but I could see something else in his eyes, deeper questions.

I stood beside Kylo and kept my head down. The computer in the corner had been turned on. While the stranger attempted small talk with Kylo I burrowed further into his side and squeezed his hand. Regardless of how we got along, Kylo Ren was a big man, tall and broad chested and if I needed protection he would give it.

I think.

“What’s your name?” Ryan asked, his eyes tracking down until he saw the cuff on my ankle.

“You making a move on my girl?” Kylo asked with a laugh. He stepped in front of me completely.

“Is she your girl? Voluntarily?” The man laughed as well, peeking around Kylo’s shoulder. “Saw you’ve got her under lock and key. Just making sure everything’s on the up and up.”

“I’m fine,” I said, staying well hidden.

“So what’s your name, girl?” Now there was a second man questioning us; a bit shorter, stockier, and far less friendly. “You look mighty familiar.”

“Her name is Rebecca,” Kylo said. “She’s a hooker from New York and we’re on a business trip, orders from the boss.”

The second man squinted his eyes and looked over his shoulder towards the computer. Following his gaze I gasped, my hand crushing Kylo’s. Sure enough, my picture was on the screen with the numbers $20,000 in bold red.

“Nah,” Ryan interjected, “I know who you are.”

Before I could even protest, Kylo let go of my hand and punched the stocky guy right in the nose, blood immediately pouring everywhere as the first man lunged at Kylo, throwing punches at his jaw and side.

“Go to the car Rey,” he yelled before throwing another punch. “GO!”

I didn’t say a word, simply swiped the keys off the table and ran, the sounds of grunting and swearing behind me as I locked myself into the car.

 

 

KYLO

 

They were little weasely guys, quick on their feet, but their punches had nothing behind them. They’d never been in a real fight; a fight for survival. They were both lucky I hadn’t brought my gun into the restaurant or I’d have no doubt added murder to my growing list of sins. I wondered briefly if Rey would show up with the pistol to try and rescue me, but before she could have done so I’d knocked both of them to the ground in a bloody heap.

“Don’t get up,” I said, wiping at the split lip the shorter one had delivered. “Or you won’t be able to next time.”

“Terry, get the car!”

Was all I heard as I made my way out the door to Rey.

She was settled into the passenger seat, her hands on the dashboard, jaw slack as she saw me approach. I gave her the signal to unlock the doors and she scrambled to put the keys in the ignition.

Before we could get anywhere a bullet ricocheted off the side of the car. Rey screamed and as I reached for my own gun in the backseat, the passenger door squeaked on its hinge, the first man reaching in to pull her out by her hair.

There was no time for the gun as the other guy was on my side of the car, reaching in the open window to punch the side of my face. I opened the door into his stomach, knocking him back as I heard Rey screaming behind me. As I tussled with the short guy I heard a slap and Rey went quiet. My cheeks burned.

“Get her in the car!” The guy beneath me yelled, “She’s got to get there in one piece. Be careful!”

I slammed his head into the ground and he kicked up into my nuts. We rolled in the dusty gravel, my stomach roiling in pain

“KYLO!” She was screaming for me as their pick up roared to life. “KYLO PLEASE!”

As I took the time to look over my shoulder, the little fucker took another shot at the side of my head and I suddenly felt an aching hot, stinging pain in my side, just below my ribs. He was holding a knife, dark and dripping. It was a superficial wound, but blood ran out onto the gravel and he scrambled out from under me, running for the pickup truck. I stumbled to my feet as he hopped into the back and Rey pounded on the passenger side window, her eyes wide.

“KYLO!”

She needed me.

 

The truck squealed out of the parking lot and I jumped into the car, my mouth filled with coppery wet as I pulled out onto the road, following close behind. The cuff around my wrist wailed its alarm that she was out of range. I could see she was fighting, the truck was swerving over the center line, her arms were thrashing, even in my pain I couldn’t help but smile. These assholes had bitten off more than they could chew. I gunned the engine and ran up on the truck, edging into the bumper. It swerved off the road into the ditch and the passenger door flew open, Rey tumbling out into the gravel. Screeching to a stop I barked at her to get in the car as the squirrelly bastard jumped out of the truck bed to chase her.

I was lightheaded, clammy like I had the flu. The sun was too bright and my left eye was swelling nearly shut, blood dripping from my brow.

“Rey!” I yelled for her, pulling myself out of the car just as the first asshole knocked her to the ground before pulling her back up with an arm tight around her throat, a fresh line of blood dripping from her hairline.

 

 

REY

 

He looked like a monster unfolding from that ancient car, his clothes damp and dark with sweat and blood, his face streaked and swollen. He was wearing a sky blue t-shirt and there was a blooming stain of blood growing just beneath his ribs. It was so odd to see him stumbling, wavering on his feet and it occurred to me only then how sturdy and unmoving he usually was; his stance wide, his gaze steady. I wanted to call out to him again but the pressure on my throat cut off my voice, I could barely catch my breath.

“Easy now Rey, easy,” the man said, dragging me back to the truck. He smelled like syrup soaked pancakes and cigarettes and I was sick to my stomach.

_Stick with the devil you know._

I glanced up at Kylo again and rasped his name, digging my heels into the gravel. He caught my gaze and for just a moment I saw his eyes light with rage, his nostrils flare. He balled up his fist and pounded hard into the wound in his side, blood dripping onto the road as he gave himself a boost of adrenaline.

"Let her go,” he growled, pulling his gun from the back of his jeans.

“Fuck you,” my captor said, laughing. “Do you know what this bitch is worth?”

The dark haired man from the back of the truck lunged forward and Kylo shot him in the ankle with barely a glance, sending him to the ground howling in agony.

“Why do you think I want her back?” He said, his gaze quickly flicking over to mine, left eye nearly swollen closed. “Let her go.”

“Listen,” pancakes guy said, his grip tighter on my throat. My lungs were burning for air, I kept trying to scream and kick but I didn’t have the energy. “Help us get her there and I’ll split it with you. No one has to get hurt.”

“Does this fucking look like no one’s getting hurt?” Kylo said, spitting blood out onto the gravel. “Let her fucking go or I’ll blow your friend’s hand off.”

“He’s not my friend –“ my guy started talking but before he could even finish a sentence Kylo had shot him twice, somewhere in the arm and leg and he fell away from me, back into the ditch screaming.

“Let’s go,” he said, holding his hand out to me. “Hurry.”


	17. Stitched

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a shortish chap I know...but there wasn't really a great place to split up the next part so...consider this a little palate cleanser :)

KYLO

 

"Do you know how to drive?” I asked, wiping my face on my shirt. There was more blood than I expected and my adrenaline was dipping again, leaving me even more lightheaded and weak. Tweedle Dee and his buddy were pulling themselves up from the ground, stumbling towards their truck. They were definitely injured and moving slow, but they were most certainly moving.

“I…guess. Yeah, I mean I’ve driven before but I can’t…”

I shuffled around to the passenger side as she shifted into the driver’s seat. She wrenched the car into gear and I let my head fall back against the headrest, pressing my hand into my side.

“Go.”

 

 

REY

 

I pulled back onto the expressway and pressed my foot to the floor, speeding down the nearly empty road while trying to keep my eye on Kylo at the same time. He was inordinately quiet, pale, holding his hand to his side, his shirt stained with a dark patch of blood, eye swollen almost closed with a gash through his eyebrow, bottom lip split and bleeding. When I hit any sort of bump or dip in the road he would groan in agony, tension pulsing in his jaw.

“Kylo. Kylo look at me. We can’t keep going. We need to take care of…”

“Just drive. Please, Rey. I’m tired. I can’t…”

I'd never heard him so weak, his plea so genuine and pained.

“Where?” I gripped the steering wheel so hard my palms hurt, my body aching with pent up energy as I watched the road ahead. “Drive where?”

The road was empty behind us but I knew it wouldn’t be for long. And if those men had any sort of access to phones or the oldweb more people would be looking, anywhere we went.

“I don’t know yet. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

His tone was clipped, graveled with pain, and I kept my eyes slanting in his direction just to make sure he stayed awake. He wasn’t in any condition to decide what to do. A green sign up ahead, broken and faded, indicated that a lakeside town was close and I took the initiative to pull off at the exit. It was getting dark, chilly, and Kylo wasn’t talking anymore.

“We have to stop,” I said. “We need to clean your wounds. You’re going to get sick and I--”

“There,” he said, his blood covered hand pointing to an old storefront with a crooked and torn For Rent sign on the door.

I drove around to the alley behind the building and jumped out without even shutting off the engine. One of the building windows was broken so I wrapped my arm in my sweatshirt and knocked out the rest of the glass, climbing through so I could open the door.

“Baby’s first B&E,” he rasped, forcing a smile as he climbed out of the car, bent at the waist.

“I’m a scavenger you idiot,” I said. “You think I’ve never broken a window?”

While walking up to the door he stumbled and I caught his giant, lumbering body against mine, helping him inside with my arm around his waist.

“Thank you,” was all he said before sliding down the wall, slumping to a bloody heap on the floor.

 

 

KYLO

 

I watched her move through blurred, half closed eyes; bustling around what looked like an old insurance office, moving chairs and boxes of paper, clearing spaces. She brought our stuff in from the car and barricaded the door with an empty filing cabinet and a desk. Once we were inside she pulled out my pistol and set it down in front of me without a word. As if I could stand guard. As if I could protect her. Still, something like pride bloomed in my chest and I felt like smiling, praising her. I’d trained her well.

My side ached and I pressed harder into the wound, bile rising in my throat as my stomach lurched from the pain. She was rifling through her backpack.

“This is your big chance, Schatzi,” I said.

“What?” She was looking for something frantically, only half listening.

“Leave me here, make your big getaway…take the car, leave me to die.” I didn’t have the energy to explain anymore. I didn't have the energy to think about it and she offered nothing by way of assurance that she wouldn't. I closed my eyes for a second…a minute…maybe three days.

Blinking awake I saw her crouched down in front of me holding a wet rag, a bottle of water and a little first aid kit with a sealed bag of medical tools. The dwindling bottle of whiskey sat at her feet along with the orange bottle of Vicodin. She tipped two of them out and slipped them into my mouth and I swallowed them with a bit of the whiskey. Her face was close to mine as she dabbed at my lip and the cut above my eye. She frowned, her brow furrowed deep with what looked like pity but could have just been concentration.

“So much for that modeling career,” I said. "Another scar...pretty soon I'll have the full set."

She gave me a little crooked grin and just stared, shaking her head, her hand still on my cheek. Her eyebrows pulled together again and she tilted her head.

“Why didn’t you kill them?” She asked.

“Did you want me to?” She shrugged and threw the rag aside, looking for her other supplies. I touched her wrist to turn her back to look at me. “I’m really not the bloodthirsty monster you seem to think I am.”

“I…I didn’t think…”

“I didn’t kill them because I didn’t have to. Now, if he’d had a gun to your head, trust me mouse, he wouldn’t have walked away.”

She had no response to that; only wider eyes and a slack jaw, still shaking her head as if looking for words she couldn't remember. I was tired and a sudden wave of nausea pulled a groan from deep in my bleeding belly. Rey touched my blood soaked fingers and frowned.

“We need to take off your shirt,” she said, pulling my hand from the wound.

I wanted to make a joke, to be clever; I wanted to be the smart ass I always strived to be, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t think of the words, I couldn’t focus on her face. Every blink was long and arduous. Everything felt heavy, like too much work. I just needed sleep.

“Kylo, look at me,” she said, holding my face in her warm hands again, giving me a little slap. Her hands were so warm, so soft, not calloused enough for this lifestyle. I leaned into her touch and the direction of her voice helped to focus my eyes. There was a smear of my blood shot across her forehead.

“I think you’re beautiful,” I said, the damn words just tumbling out before I could stop them.

Snoke always said that you couldn’t tell them. You couldn’t give women all that power, showing them how they affected you, showing them your soft spots. But I was weak. I was afraid, and I wanted her to know.

“Come on..stay awake,” she said. “It’s not so bad, you’re being dramatic. Let me fix you and then we can sleep.”

She tugged at my shirt, pulling it over my head. I heard her gasp and again her tiny warm hands pressed to my skin. Then she threaded our fingers together and squeezed as she dabbed at the cut with the wet rag. I kicked the floor and hissed, growling in her ear; but she said nothing, her jaw set tight as she cleaned the drying blood away, clearing the wound.

“I…I have to put some stitches in,” She said, tearing open the little suture kit with her teeth. “They’ll be shitty, but Rose taught me how…it’s…you won’t heal without it. You should probably take antibiotics too, or something…I just…I’m not a nurse…I just…”

I put my fingers to her lips to shut her up for a minute., to keep her from going down the spiral.

“You can do it. Come on. Quit whining and dig in.”

When I pulled away her lips were stained with my blood.

 

She focused on those stitches like they held all the answers of the universe, the tip of her tongue poking out from between her lips. Before each stab of the needle I took a swig of the whiskey and she would whisper an apology to my stomach. I’d had worse; worse and with less gentle aftercare for sure. One day I’d tell her about the scar on my cheek that Hux gave me in prison with the sharpened end of a bed rail. One day we would just sit and talk.

This little thing, this shallow…scratch only needed five stitches at the most. It hurt though, for sure. She snapped the black thread and went back to the supplies, pulling out an old t-shirt that she’d worn to sleep in.

“I know where they went,” she said, tearing it into pieces that she folded into squares and pressed on the wound. “Snoke and them. They’re going to an island in Wisconsin, up north.”

Taking another sip of whiskey I raised an eyebrow at her. Why would she give me that information – if it was true? She tore off a few pieces of silver duct tape and secured the makeshift bandage. When she was satisfied with her work she sat back on her heels and looked at me, chewing on the cuticle of her thumb.

“Snoke’s brother owned land on Washington Island. They have animals and generators and pre-built shelters. They have a plan.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” I asked, the vicodin and whiskey starting to make me sleepy, dizzy. I could see now why you weren't supposed to take them together. My muscles felt like mush. I was boneless. I slid down to lay on the floor on my back, staring up at the stained and broken ceiling tiles.

“You don’t have to leave me there,” she finally said, her voice small and uncertain. “At the Farm.”

She pulled out a blanket and curled up next to me, propping herself up on one elbow. For the first time I noticed the bruises and scratches on her own face, the red marks on her throat and I was filled with a renewed anger that I had to bite down.

“We have somewhere we can go. We can go...together.” The tears came instantly and she tried to sniff them up, wiping her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Please don’t take me there. Please Kylo. I know it’s a lot of money and I’ll make it up to you…I promise. I can work for you or…whatever you want me to…”

I reached out for her hand and pulled her close, pressing my lips to hers, kissing her slow, deep, every stroke of her tongue, nip of her lips a heightened sensation. She stretched out on the floor and wrapped an arm around my neck, bending over me to kiss back, her lips gently touching the cut on my lip, the cleaned split in my eyebrow, my swollen cheekbone. Snoke said to never show your cards, never reveal yourself. Snoke said to always, always hide behind a mask. But Snoke wasn’t there. And as pretty as her glittering eyes were at that moment, I didn’t want her crying anymore.

“I just shot two guys, got myself beaten to a pulp, stabbed and stitched up by an amateur paramedic hobbyist,” I said. “Schatzi, you still honestly think I’m going to let you go?”

 

 

REY

 

He smiled and passed out like he hadn’t just dropped a bomb, like he hadn’t changed the course of my life for good. I held tight to him as he drifted off because I felt light headed, like we would both just float apart and none of it would be real if I let go. But it was true. I could see it in his eyes, even through the pain and fatigue; I saw the stubborn insistence in his gaze. He would _not_ let me go. In another life, in another time it might have scared me, that sort of possessiveness, that primitive dominance. But this was a different world, where every day I was worn to exhaustion at having to look over my shoulder, hide from strangers, keep my head down. If I just gave myself to him, if I just did as he asked and followed his lead, I knew Kylo would keep me safe, like a giant dark dragon holding me inside wide black wings: dark and suffocating at times, but warm and secure nonetheless.

I had intended to keep watch, to make sure that my poor stitches held and that he wasn’t in too much pain. But my own exhaustion began to take over, my own pain in the side of my head where I’d been thrown to the ground started to throb. I took a sip of the dwindling whiskey and touched two fingertips to the newly developing knot near my temple.

Kylo snored loudly and rolled onto his side, tugging at my arm to take me with him. I pulled off my sweatshirt and folded it into a pillow and curling myself up against his broad, warm back I quickly fell asleep.


	18. Shreds

I woke up before her with an ache in my side. The stitches had held through the night but the skin around the wound was angry pink, warm to the touch and wet. I changed the dressing and took two more Vicodin before digging through my supplies for the packs of Cipro that I’d planned on selling. Taking the extended release pill with a long drink of water I went back to lie down beside her; thoroughly exhausted after a whole ten minutes of moving around. It was still dark out and with no lights, no fire, no signs of life and the car hidden in the alley I doubted anyone would look for us in the old, shuttered office. It was ok to take time to relax.

I pulled out the second blanket we had and spread it on the floor before kicking off my shoes. Every bone and joint in my body ached. Bruises and scratches that the larger wound had drowned out flared to life with each movement. My muscles were stiff from a night on the floor and I missed my bed, my apartment, my nice, calm life of crime in New York: a simple life of worrying about myself and that’s it.

Not that I was worried about her.

As soon as I stretched out on the floor she moved in her sleep, curling up next to me, her arm thrown across my stomach. She murmured something and her lips moved against my bare arm. Even in the low light I could see the swelling around her eye and down her cheek where one of them must have backhanded her. Hurt her.

Just like I had.

I pushed her hair back from her forehead, touching my fingertips to the bruise that curled like a crescent moon around her eye. When she was asleep I could stare at her as long as I wanted. I could count the little constellation of freckles across her nose, her long dark eyelashes lying on her cheek. A swipe of my blood was still dried on her forehead and I ran my thumb over it. She was marked.

“Mmm,” she purred, the sound going right to my cock. But I didn’t have the energy, or the ability to fuck her just then. Instead I just pressed my lips to her forehead. Still she snuggled closer, her leg thrown over mine, linking us together and I ran my fingers over her back. “I’m hungry,” she muttered.

“Yeah, well, we don’t exactly have an all you can eat buffet. I have a couple apples from that diner and some almonds I think.”

I moved to disentangle myself but she pushed me back down and got up on her own to rifle through the bags.

“You should rest,” she said. “For a little bit at least, and then I’ll look at your stitches, but shouldn’t we get moving?”

“Moving where?” I asked, ignoring her advice entirely and getting up.

The pills were kicking in and I had a bit more energy. There were still desks and bookshelves to explore, supply closets and all the trappings of what looked like an insurance office or something. As was the usual procedure I started digging through drawers looking for anything of value.

“Owen’s island,” she said, standing up herself and looking through the bags for water and food. “Where the rest of them are.”

…a few batteries, another first aid kit, jar of peanut butter almost full, half a bottle of gin in the bottom drawer of a desk in the back.

“Why do you want to go there?” I asked, heading for the tiny lunchroom off the main office. A couple of instant soup packets. “So they can string me up as soon as we set foot on the shore? Get yourself some justice? Hide behind your white knight Snoke?”

I nearly choked on the words they were so ridiculous, but it made no sense that she wanted so desperately to get to them, still trying to get away from me after all I’d done for her. She didn’t answer me until I came back out and looked at her standing stock still, pouting like a child. The white of her injured eye was filled with blood; there were bruises on her neck getting darker by the minute. She’d taken care of me the night before but I doubted very much she’d let me return the favor and I wasn’t sure what I could do for her anyway.

“They wouldn’t do that,” she said.

I cracked open a bottle of water and tipped a little bit of it onto some paper towels before walking over to her and wiping the blood from her forehead, swiping the cool, damp towel over her whole face before throwing it over my shoulder.

“You know, you think you know these guys so well Schatzi. One big happy family, yeah?” I sat on the edge of a desk, leaning back on my hands, watching her as she started going through the bookshelves, flipping through paperbacks, playing with an old stapler. “You even know what they were in for? Any of them? Or how long? Prison does things to a guy.”

“I mean, Finn…Rose told me he was caught looting…burglary I guess,” she wouldn’t look me in the eye.

“Yeah, li’l Finn, robbing from the rich to give to the poor. I’m sure he’s an angel. How about Hux? How about Snoke?”

Finn was a hanger on…a mascot. Sure, he could throw down if he had to but he was hardly the big bad wolf in the group.

“I don’t…I don’t know. I don’t know them as well as I…Why? What does it matter? They have somewhere safe we can stay.”

I stood and took the stapler from her hand, mimicking her dramatic pout, my arms crossed over my chest, staring her down.

“It matters because for some reason you think you can trust them more than you can trust me, little mouse. That’s why you want to go there isn’t it? You’ll be safer there? Safer from mean old Kylo?” I leaned in and put my lips to her ear, nipping at the tender little lobe. “Who happens to know just how to fuck you until you scream.”

“No!” She said, a bit too quickly, backing away with her brow furrowed deep. “It isn’t that at all…it’s just…”

“What if I told you a little secret about your band of merry men, baby? What if I told you that I actually didn’t pay a DIME for you? What if I told you that all I had to do was ask them… _once_ …to leave you behind, and they did?” I snapped my fingers. “Just like that.”

“What?”

I almost regretted saying it seeing the way her face fell; seeing how just then the injuries to her body seemed to be a reflection of my words. But she’d hurt me too. I was bruised, too. Still, I didn’t elaborate, just walked away to pack up what new supplies we’d found. We couldn't focus on this stuff now. We couldn't stand around having big emotional breathroughs. There had to be a way to make more money.

“Kylo, don’t do this. Why do you do this?” She asked, but it was almost like she was talking to herself, looking at the floor, shaking her head.

“Do what Schatzi?”

She pulled the first aid kit from my hand and shoved it in the duffle bag before marching back to poke me in the chest with one angry finger.

“Every time I think I’m breaking in, breaking through…every time I think you’re showing yourself to me you make sure to do something awful to push me away.”

“Maybe I’m just taking care of you,” I said, wincing as I lifted the hard sided pack. Something popped near my side. “Maybe I’m protecting you.”

“From what? From you?” She said, incredulously.

It wasn’t what I meant but if she wanted to believe it, there wasn’t anything I could do to stop her.

 

 

REY

 

If I learned one thing about him that day it was that he didn’t like being called on his bullshit. We scoured the rest of the office in silence and I found a box of orange spice tea that reminded me of going to school on crisp fall mornings and an old heavy coffee mug with a picture of a cartoon cat on it. I packed it up in my own backpack and followed him out to the car.

“I can drive if you want,” I said, seeing how he winced and groaned while lifting bags and boxes that were barely twenty pounds.

He took the gas can out of the trunk and filled the tank. We only had one more and I was sure it wouldn’t last until Wisconsin.

“I’m good,” he said. “We need to find some real food and a way to sell some of this shit for money. After buying this thing I’m low on cash.”

He slammed the trunk shut and shuffled towards the driver’s side, sliding into the seat with a hiss of pain. I got in and faced straight ahead, pulling one knee up to my chest.

“Look,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We need more supplies, different…supplies. And I…I’m tired of running and hiding, looking over my shoulder every ten minutes…So fucking tired,” For a minute he was quiet, his eyes closed, leaned back against the headrest. Then with another heavy sigh he started the car. “I’ll drive towards Door County but if I find somewhere better, somewhere _I_ want to stay…we’re stopping. Got me?”

“Yes sir supreme leader,” I said, not looking at him.

Instead I thought back to the way he’d looked at me the night before, the softness in his features when he told me I was beautiful, the soft way he’d kissed me when he’d told me that he’d never let me go. He may as well have slapped me right across the face I was so shocked by it, and yet it settled warm in my belly, calmed my nerves. It was as if he’d finally…seen me. He finally felt something and was ready to admit it. I was sure it wasn’t love, and maybe it was just blind lust, but I was fairly sure I was no longer just the “fuck toy” he’d told me I was going to be just a couple days ago. I wasn’t just a meal ticket or a payday. I wouldn’t need to wear a cuff or be on a leash, I’d become _someone_ to him. Curling up against him with his arm wrapped tight around my back I’d almost forgotten about the pain I was in; or the danger. Hearing his heart beating strong behind his ribs, I slept better than I had in days.

But I’d forgotten that it was Kylo, and he had to tear that all to shreds.

 

We pulled out onto the expressway and I watched him from the corner of my eye. Every so often he would take a deep breath, pressing his hand to the wound in his side; and his forehead was glowing with a sheen of sweat as he squinted into the sun. There were a few dots of fresh blood on the clean t-shirt he’d put on only an hour or so before, but it could have just been the edges of the wound. Seeing him covered in blood, shaking and weak the night before…it had terrified me. Not having him at full strength, not having him to stand between me and whatever else was out there had nearly made me nauseated with fear. It was hard to believe I’d ever considered myself some sort of high stakes survivalist when I was so thoroughly dependent on this monster who toyed with me like a wounded mouse.

He was right, though, I didn’t know anything about Snoke or Hux. Rose told me all about her precious boyfriend Finn, but it was of course tinted by her love for him. Burglary was burglary and it was still a crime, but his sentence was six years less than Snoke or Hux and that had to be for a reason.

Kylo cracked his neck to the side and groaned, adjusting how he sat as we made our way west into Ohio. Cleveland was a pale shadow of what it had been but he thought it was still a good place to make deals and find opportunities. There was a pocket of underworld affluence in the center of the city and they would be happy to buy drugs or bullets and they’d have plenty of stuff to steal.

“ _I wouldn’t live there if it was paved with fucking gold, but it might be a good stop_ _for a day,_ ” he’d said.

But now he hadn’t spoken in nearly an hour. There was more traffic as we got closer to the city and he drove through it with white knuckles as more modern, better equipped, cars zipped by.

“What about you?” I asked, picking at my cuticle. “What were you in for?”

“Hoarding puppies,” he muttered, not taking his eyes off the road.

“You want me to trust you? You want me to stay with you and not try to run? You have to tell me _something_ Kylo. You tell me I should be afraid of Snoke and Hux but you don’t do anything to pull the curtain back on yourself…you think…”

 

“Assault and battery and attempted murder,” he said finally, just as calmly as his mention of the puppies. “My swimming coach, his brother was in the Russian mob. Palpatine. I started talking to him at a party after a meet and he offered me an _opportunity_ to make some money for my family. ‘Big strong boy like you, you could easily collect debts,’” Kylo adopted a Russian accent, raising his eyebrows in imitation. “He said I’d never have to lay a hand on anyone being so tall and strong and intimidating. Turns out tall intimidating guys owe money sometimes too.”

I turned a bit in my seat and watched him. Gone was the cocky, sarcastic, sharp tongued Kylo. In his place was a scared boy, a boy tricked into thinking he could help his parents. It hit close.

“So when he saw that I could deliver a good beating, I became the heavy. He sent me out to ‘deliver messages’,” Kylo said, making air quotes with his fingers. “Brought home all kinds of money, more than a teenager should, and my parents started questioning me. I lied about some bullshit construction job and they bought it.” He was silent for another moment, looking out at the road and shaking his head, mashing his lips together as he thought. “They knew though. They knew damn well when I came home high on coke with black eyes and black leather jackets, rolls of twenties thrown on the table. They knew. But money sure is a fucking good blinder, isn’t it?”

When he turned to look at me I couldn’t talk. My throat had tightened, tears welling in my eyes and I could see the rims of his eyes were red, too. I always wondered if my parents understood the full workings of The Farm. I wondered if they knew that eventually I would be a prisoner there, that eventually their daughter would be chopped up and sold for parts. I always wondered how much money they were offered to give away their child. Had they even considered saying no? A tear slid down my cheek and I wiped it away. Kylo nodded, his lips turned down, but I could see his chin trembling as he turned back to watch the road.

 

 

We drove down to the Flats in Cleveland. What used to be a gathering place, bars and restaurants, fun and frolic, was now little more than a shanty town, a hide out for the darker side of the populace. We parked half a mile away and walked slowly into the muck, Kylo’s gun tucked into his jeans, his hand holding tight to mine while I carried a few of our more valuable wares in a black backpack. I pulled my hood up on my sweatshirt and wore a pair of old sunglasses that were far too big for my face. It wasn’t an unusual move though as most of the ne’er do wells were in some form of disguise. Kylo had put on his black jacket and gloves and with a cigarette and a few days beard growth he looked frightening, tall and broad shouldered. I wasn’t afraid.

“Kylo,” I said, as we made our way into a smoky bar that smelled like sweat and stale beer. I hesitated at the door, seeing an intimidating collection of people huddled in groups, looking up as we made our entrance. “Kylo, I know we need gas and money and food but I don’t…” I squeezed his hand and he turned, looking down at me with confusion. “I don’t want to…”

His eyes raked over me slowly and he shook his head, frowning.

“No one touches you but me,” he said, tucking a lock of my hair under my hood. “Remember that, Schatzi.”

 

 

KYLO

 

We each got a beer and sat at a table in the back. I kept my eyes peeled for the unlikely chance that I knew anyone or that anyone recognized her. One of the items on our supply list was hair dye. If we changed her look somehow it would at least stop the instantaneous recognition of bounty hunters and she was more than happy to do it. Rey sipped her beer slowly, pressed to my side, picking at the label with her thumb. I kissed her temple and she winced as my lips touched the bruise on her cheekbone.

“Do you want something? We still have vicodin,” I said. “I brought a few in my pocket.”

“I’m ok,” she said, looking at the floor.

“Just tell me,” I said, watching a little cluster of guys in the corner. "I got you."

One of them seemed to be holding court while a few others approached, handing over envelopes or delivering messages. He had some sort of sway. He was the one we needed. I wanted to do our business and leave. My limbs felt heavy, my shirt was soaked with sweat. I wanted this to be over.

“Look, I’m…I’m sorry,” I said, pressing my hand to the wound beneath my shirt, the bandage felt wet.

“What?” She asked.

“I’m sorry they got you...took you, that I wasn’t…quicker. I’m sorry that I couldn’t knock those fuckers out before they…”

I ran two fingers down the side of her cheek, over the bruise that was getting darker and angrier with every minute. She closed her eyes, her bottom lip trembling.

“He hit me,” she said, working her jaw. “He punched me so hard I bit my cheek. I was swallowing blood. Does it look bad?”

There were few mirrors in this shitty world. No one wanted to see the effect that life had on their faces, the look it put in their eyes.

“It looks like it hurts.”

My hand was still on her cheek and she leaned into my palm.

“I’m tired of running too,” she said.

We finished our beers and she told me about the first time she ever tasted alcohol, her older brother sneaking her a beer in their family’s basement while she hung out with his friends.

“It was one of my weekends home from the Farm. I had to go back in in two days. I mean, it wasn’t enough to get me drunk but I started acting drunk so he would think I was cool,” she said, laughing weakly, looking down at the table.

“Why did you care?” I asked.

“Spoken by someone who was probably effortlessly cool,” she said.

“Sure baby, that’s me,” I said, rolling my eyes at her. “Come on mouse, time to make our money.”


	19. Torched

**REY**

 

His whole demeanor changed as we approached the man in the corner. He stood up straighter, cracking his neck to each side before lowering his brow and pulling his lips into an stony frown. His face was nearly a blank mask, still I could tell he was in pain, his forehead dotted with sweat, skin more sallow than usual. He needed to rest. I stood behind him as instructed and for once in my life I kept my mouth shut.

The man gave me a once over but then it was as if I were invisible, the two of them discussing Kylo’s inventory and the list of supplies we needed…gas, food, cash. We had a box of fifteen burner phones that the man eagerly made a deal for as well as six ounces of weed that Kylo made a big show about parting with even though I knew he had more hidden in the trunk of our car. It was much harder to grow these days and like everything else, far more expensive than it used to be; but people paid top dollar for anything that would dull their senses for a bit. By the time they were done dealing we had a list of addresses for supply shops and had more than made up for the cost of the car.

“What about clothes for my girl,” Kylo said, counting his new stack of twenties. “She’s tired of wearing the same three shirts for the last month. I want her to have something nice.”

I bit my tongue trying to hide my surprise. He may as well have said he wanted to buy me a diamond ring. I’d never asked for new clothes, better clothes and never complained about the two or three outfits I already had, but he must have wanted to see me in something else. The man scribbled something on the back of a napkin and handed it to Kylo.

“Thanks,” I whispered into Kylo’s shoulder, sitting next to him in the crowded booth.

“Take her here,” he said, nodding in my direction. “They’ll have everything you need for…” his eyes roamed down to the cuff around my ankle and back up again, his smile a bit darker. “…your girl.”

“ _Mine_ being the operative word,” Kylo said, a bit of an edge to his clarification.

He stood too fast when we got up to leave and with his first step he stumbled, hissing with pain, his hand on his belly. I looked down to see that the wound had bled through the bandage, his shirt stained dark, wetting his fingers.

“Got two fifty?” The man asked, picking at a plate of overly sauced chicken wings as if it were the most normal occurrence in the world.

“What?” I said, helping Kylo to sit back down, crouching to check the bandage that was soaked in dark blood that dripped into my palm.

“Two hundred and fifty dollars,” he said, speaking slowly, as if I were a child. “I know a place you can stay for a few nights if your boy needs to recoup. Might know a doctor too.” He clucked his tongue and shook his head. “Because that doesn’t look good, Peaches.”

He knew damn well we had the money because he’d just given it to us, so this wasn’t an offer from the goodness of his heart. But I looked down at Kylo for a signal, his mouth set in a tight line, face white.

“Two fifty?” I snapped. “We have a car. We can drive out toward—“

Kylo grabbed my arm, squeezing tight. He shook his head to shut me up and handed me the folded up wad of bills. Admittedly there was more there than I expected, but it still seemed a ridiculous cost when we’d been fending for ourselves for over a week.

“Give it to him,” Kylo said. Then flicking his eyes towards the guy eating wings he muttered, “Where is it?”

I peeled off the bills and handed them over.  The man nodded and took the napkin back from Kylo, writing down an address.

“Just down the street on Ontario. Four or five blocks. Go in and tell them Boba sent you. You’ll get a real nice room.”

Having finally pulled himself together, Kylo nodded and stood. He grabbed my hand and headed for the door dragging me behind him, barely able to keep up with his pace.

“Have to lay down,” he muttered under his breath. “I’m thirsty.”

“C’mon,” I said, taking the lead and heading up Ontario street. “We’ll get you fixed up.”

 

**KYLO**

 

She was all business after that, but I don’t remember much of it. She clutched the scribbled on napkin in her palm and lead us to what looked like an old stone office building. Where there used to be signs were just bolts and rebar poking from the façade.  Windows were shattered, boarded up, painted over with graffiti and yet still people in expensive black suits and women with diamond earrings and low cut dresses streamed from the front door. It was alive with devious people from every walk of life…hookers and drug dealers, rich thrill seekers, poor beggars. They all milled around the lobby and Rey lead us through the throng, her arm threaded through my elbow. I was starting to see double but I wasn’t sure if it was exhaustion or hunger, infection or pain. I just knew that I wanted very desperately for it to stop.

We stood at a desk, talking to a woman dressed all in black, surrounded by phones. Rey said the right things and took more money from my pocket, handing it over without question and I didn’t have the energy to stop her or even ask what it was for. She was entirely in charge.

We stumbled to the elevator and to the third floor. There were tags spray painted on the walls and the carpet in the hallway was ripped up, but the building smelled clean. It smelled…normal, the bright, sterile smell of cool, recycled air. There were working lights, locks on the doors. She unlocked room 309 and we stumbled inside.

“The bed,” I said, shouldering past her. “Can you get me some water?” I asked, shrugging out of my jacket and pulling the little baggie of vicodin out of my pocket.

“Kylo,” she said, holding my face in her hands. They were cool and felt good on my skin. “Give me the keys to the car.  I need to go get some of our stuff. I need…I need the first aid kits and the antibiotics.”

The car. She would have to leave the building and walk nearly half a mile away. She wanted me to take off the cuff and let her go. Truth was even if she ran out the door I didn’t have the strength to chase her anyway, but still, she was asking.

“Water,” I asked again, pulling the keys from my pocket and throwing them on the bed.

She rushed to the bathroom and came back with a plastic cup filled with cold water. It tasted like iron and chlorine but I guzzled it down like it was the last drink I’d ever get.

“You OK on your own?” She asked, pushing the hair out of my face.

I nodded and pressed the button on my cuff, cutting the power. When she grabbed the keys and turned to the door I whispered,

“Please come back.”

 

 

**REY**

 

I don’t know if I was meant to hear it. I don’t know if he meant it to sound so small and desperate, but the words carried and stabbed me in the heart, no matter how weak and breathy they were. I heard him.

I felt comfortable being back in a city. It wasn’t boiling over with rage and danger like New York was, but it wasn’t the complete wilderness of Upstate either. I could navigate the standard city issues…avoiding eye contact with strangers, staying out of the alleys, eyes sweeping back and forth with every step. The car was parked on a narrow side street about six city blocks from the hotel. I couldn’t carry everything back, but I stuffed the most valuable things in my back pack and slung another bag over my shoulder, locking the rest in the trunk.

The consignment shop Boba directed us to was brightly lit and stocked with more clothes than I'd seen in a while. He hadn't told me how much I could spend or what I could buy and part of me felt guilty shopping for jeans while he was in agony back in hotel, but I stepped inside anyway. The racks and tags and dressing rooms reminded me of being a kid, going to the department stores and trying on dresses for Easter. For a few minutes it seemed normal, picking out sizes and colors, seeing what matched what looked good. I got a new bra and black jeans, some brightly colored t-shirts and a blue hoodie. As I was leaving I passed by a small section of pajamas and lingerie. There on the rack was a soft buttery yellow nightgown, just like the one he'd given me to wear back at the abandoned house. The nightgown he'd torn from my body, pinning me to the mattress. I ran my fingers over the fabric, the lace trim along the bottom. Behind it was a different nightie, dark red, dramatic and long with plunging back. It was different from the yellow, different from the abandoned house. Everything about it was different. I picked it up and added it to my bag.

Following the directions on Boba’s napkin map I got a new canvas backpack full of supplies…fresh food and tall bottles of water, razors, everything on our list. Apparently, the things Kylo had to offer were more valuable than even I understood, and we were rewarded greatly. Making my way back towards the river I picked up my pace, pulling up the hood on my sweatshirt. I wanted to get back before it was too late, before the real monsters started prowling the streets looking for prey. I’d learned a lot while with Kylo but I was still Rey Gilchrist. I hadn’t cut or dyed my hair yet and I wore a target on my back.

And all the while it never occurred to me once that I could leave, that I could just take everything, the car, the money, the medicine; I could take all of it and go to the island without him. Or I guess it did occur to me but it was never an option. As strange as it sounded, he’d done too much for me. He was the reason I wasn’t hogtied in the back of a pickup truck on my way to The Farm. I couldn’t leave him there, in pain, in shock. I couldn’t leave him alone. In this world it was the worst thing you could do.

The packs were heavy but they felt appropriate to the guilt I also dragged along with me. He was sick, possibly infected, and in horrible pain because of my shitty sutures. I’d tried to be his hero and it ended up making everything worse. Who would have thought a wound barely three inches long could cause such trouble?

I passed what looked like a mini junk yard; an abandoned lot with a makeshift garage/workshop in the back and a cluster of broken down, half deconstructed cars littered on the rest of the gravel covered space. A few men were working, chatting, moving from car to car and pulling out parts to sell and out of the corner of my eye I saw a bright light…a shower of sparks. It was a small, slender, silver blowtorch. I’d seen them in use at The Farm, people working on construction and equipment around the building.

Hux had gotten into a bar fight once, someone pulled a knife and he was sliced across the thigh. He was bleeding a lot and very fast and there wasn’t time for stitches. That’s when I learned how to cauterize a wound. Hux screamed like nothing I’d ever heard before, nearly passed out from the pain of it, but the bleeding stopped and the wound healed. Maybe we could just get him patched up until we got to the island and then Rose could take care of it.

I hung around the work yard, looking down at a burner phone that wasn’t even turned on, pretending to be engrossed in something until one of them set one of the blowtorches down. They walked away from the car towards the garage and I snuck in, snatched the torch and took off, slipping down the nearest alley. Hopefully the propane canister was full.

 

**KYLO**  

 

The bed was downright luxurious and in the cool quiet with painkillers coursing through my blood I found myself drifting off as soon as she left. Being locked in a room on the third floor gave me a bit of security, like I could let my guard down enough to rest - for a moment. Then I considered the possibility that she was gone for good; that she’d taken everything I’d accumulated over the past three years and skipped town. Then again, this was my little Goody Two Shoes. Sweet little Rey looking for her happy ending. She had to come back. Her conscience wouldn’t allow her to abandon me. Morality used to mean something to me, too.

Hearing her bustle through the front door jolted me awake, but not completely and I watched her through half closed eyes, trying hard to listen to her story.  She’d gotten most of our stuff from the car. She called it _our stuff._ She was nervous walking back…found a car? Stole a car? A tool? I closed my eyes and laid back against the pillow, so cool on the back of my neck.

Then she was beside me, stripped down to her white sports bra and jeans, her hair pulled into a knot on top of her head. I hadn’t heard the first part of her speech, but now she was holding my knife and that woke me up fully.

“OK? It will hurt like hell for a while but then we won’t have to worry about it…it will scar over,” she said.

“What? Wait…I didn’t…”

“Your stitches broke. I did….I did them wrong I guess, or not enough or not tight enough…I tried, I just…that’s why you’re bleeding more and I think it’s infected.”

I wasn’t wearing a shirt…or pants. No wonder I felt cooler. She had a cold wet rag and was dabbing at the gash in my stomach. I dug my fingers into her shoulder, growling in pain. The stitches were gone, her fingertips covered in blood, the sheets stained.

“Rey…”

“I pulled the rest out and cleared the wound. You passed out for a minute. I don’t think there was a lot of...pus or anything but it looked…it was angry and hot. I think it’s clear now…it’ll be ok. Don’t worry, everything will be OK.”

She talked fast, repeating herself, not looking me in the eye and I was fairly sure she was trying to convince herself. When she picked up the knife again I heard the click and woosh of a lighter igniting and saw that she also had a blow torch. Jesus Christ.

“Rey wait…I…”

“We have to Kylo. It’ll be ok. I’ve got the Vicodin and the rest of the weed…I’ve seen Rose do it on a wound that was far worse. Please just…let me help you. Just trust me…please…” Her eyes were wide, her chin trembling, she was on the verge of tears. “You wouldn’t be here…like this if I hadn’t fucked up. Let me fix it. I have to make it better, I have –"

“Do it,” I said, stopping her. “Just…don’t miss. Because I won’t let you do it fucking twice.”

 

 

When I woke up a few minutes later I wanted to throw up. The burn in my side was agony and felt like it was getting worse, deeper, instead of getting better. The smell was fucking awful. I only remembered flashes of the actual process, the glowing red of the knife blade, her shaking hand. She grabbed my hand before touching the blade to my skin, telling me to squeeze as hard as I could. I remembered her screaming along with me when the blade hit flesh and then nothing after that.

“Rey?” I moved to sit up and she was at my side in seconds with three pills in her hand and another glass of water.

“Vicodin and Doxycycline,” she said. “I’d offer you a joint but I think this will work better for now.

She put the pills in my hand and produced a roll of clean white gauze from one of the first aid kits, along with tape. Her hands were still shaking and I could see the tracks of tears that had streaked down her cheeks, trailing all the way to the down the front of her neck.

“You were crying, “ I said, touching the hollow of her throat.

Her smile was shaky and she wouldn’t look up at me, carefully applying some clear ointment to the gauze before taping it over my stomach.

“I don’t like to see you hurting,” she said before quickly adding, “anybody. I don’t like anybody hurting. I just—“ she shook her head and finished her work. “It’s fine now. Now you’ll get better. I think I’ll go downstairs and see if I can find us something to eat…”

She tried to pull her hand away, to stand up, but I grabbed her wrist and held her hand to my cheek. I liked when she did that earlier, when she pressed the back of her hand to my forehead to check for a fever; when she ran her hand through my hair to soothe me. It made my heart ache for something long gone…something maternal, something clean.

“I’m not hungry,” I said. “Just stay here with me.” I pulled her down beside me on the wide, queen sized bed.

She switched off the bedside lamp and we lay together in the dark. The night was moonless and cool, a whistling breeze seeping in through the cracked window frames. The sounds of the city were familiar and soothing. The pills and the darkness and the exhaustion combined were a heady potion and my eyelids grew heavy.

“You’ll feel better tomorrow,” she whispered into the dark. “A day full of rest, some water, good food and your body will heal. Just let yourself heal.”

As she talked her fingertips tickled over my chest, tracing the outlines of my ink. I shivered...from the pain. She pulled at the blanket and tugged it over both of us, settling into the crook of my arm. She fell asleep almost immediately, but before I could drift off completely, I reached down to the cuff around my wrist and turned the tracking device back on.


	20. Bleached

REY

  
I knew he’d turn it back on. He claimed to trust me but I knew damn well that he didn’t trust anyone, not really. And like he always said; prison does things to a guy. 

Once he’d fallen into a deep sleep I unwound myself from his arms and slipped away to fill the bathtub. It didn’t hit me until I lay beside him how exhausted I was and not just from running around the creepiest parts of Cleveland alone all day. Seeing all the blood, seeing him suffering had had me panicked. But now it seemed he was out of the woods and we’d survived the cauterization without him punching me in the face so I counted it as a win. So the adrenaline of my fear was finally dropping, leaving a wilted mess in its wake.

As I sunk down into the tub, the water deep and thickly covered with bubbles, I tried to remember the last time I’d actually been able to sit in a bathtub and rest, to close my eyes and take in the silence, to actually enjoy the warmth sinking into my bones. Everything felt warm and loose, my shoulders dropping down from my ears, my back lengthening, muscles softening. My eyes drifted to the bottle of hair bleach and old scissors on the counter: things from our list of supplies. It was part of our plan to keep the bounty hunters off my ass and it was ridiculously simple, but maybe enough to buy us time to get past Chicago. After shaving my legs and soaking until I felt lightheaded, I shampooed my hair. It was well past my shoulders now and I thought back to how Kylo liked to run his fingers through it; how he always insisted I wear it down, how he wrapped it around his fingers when we kissed, his hands deep in my hair.  He would be the one to hate the change the most; but he’d suggested the transformation himself. So I picked up the bleach and got to work.

 

KYLO

 

When I woke again the room was bright with morning sun and she was already up and bustling around.  I groaned and moved, adjusting my position and she rushed over with a cool washcloth in her hand, handing me another antibiotic.

“You had a bit of a fever in the night, or I mean, maybe you were just overheated. Something. You were sweating. Are you cold? Too cold? I took the blanket off of you…” 

She sat on the edge of the bed and swiped the washcloth over my forehead. If she noticed that the cuffs were turned back on she didn’t say anything, every bit of her focus on me. I didn’t remember her getting up in the night, or her taking the blanket off. I only remembered how she took care of me, asking how I felt, what I needed, what she could do. 

Every time she spoke I was reminded once again that she could have just left. I was pretty well out of the woods and she could escape with a clear conscience. She could do what I told her to and take what she wanted, take what was hers, make her own success. But of course there she was, sifting through the bags for a protein bar as if it were any other day.

“I’m not hungry,” I said, my voice dry and tight from disuse. My head hurt but I was sure it was just dehydration. “Just water. Please.”

“It looks good…the burn,” she said, heading back to the bathroom for some water. “And the skin around it doesn’t look as…angry as it did before. I put a new bandage on it. You don’t look as pale. Whatever it is we’re doing, I guess it works.”

I blinked twice, thinking it was the infection, or the bright sun, or the way she was standing, but when she came closer I saw clearly…she’d bleached her hair. It was nearly white now, yellowed at the roots, a few patches here and there in the back were still showing the dark chestnut color that I’d loved. Like a reminder.

“You did it yourself,” I said, laying back. For once I didn’t feel lightning bolts of pain in my stomach. “I was going to help.”

“Yeah,” she said with a shrug, combing through it with her fingers, pulling it over her shoulders so I could see all of it. “I was taking a bath and the bottle was in there…”

“Looks nice,” I said, even though I liked it better brown. I could tell she was uncomfortable, that she hated the change. In fact she snorted at the compliment, rolling her eyes. 

“Lets just say I won’t feel too bad about cutting it off,” she said, still fiddling with the dried ends. “Never dyed my hair before. Doesn’t seem like me.”

I reached up to touch it myself, running my hand from scalp to tip, twisting the ends around my fingers to pull her in a bit closer.

“It looks _nice_ ," I repeated, looking her in the eye. "And it will keep you hidden. It’ll look even _nicer_ when we cut it,” I finished slowly, hoping she caught my drift; hoping that she understood that I didn’t give a single rat’s ass what her hair looked like as long as it kept her off the bounty hunters’ radar.

She nodded, her lips tight, but I could see tears in her eyes. The blood spots and bruises were fading and she was looking like her old self. Still, she was near tears and desperate to hide it from me.

“What?” I asked, sitting up. “What is it, mouse?”

She shook her head, waving me off and attempting to walk away. I grabbed her arm and pulled her back down to sit, the tears finally falling and streaking down her cheeks as she pulled her arm free.

“It's stupid,” she said. “It’s just hair. I know. But I don’t…I just…I don't feel like myself anymore.”

I pulled myself out of bed, cracking my neck, stretching my back, wandering to the bathroom for a piss. I picked up the scissors on my way back, spinning them around my index finger as I walked back to her.

“You should be resting,” she said, wiping her eyes. 

“I’m tired of resting. Come on, come over here,” I said, pulling out the chair from the rickety hotel desk. “Sit.”

“Kylo,”

“SIT.”

She sighed a bit more heavily than I would have liked but walked over to the chair and sat, crossing her arms over her chest, slumping down like a petulant child.

"Good girl," I said, bending forward to kiss the crown of her head.

She huffed in response; and there she was, my bratty little mouse. The mirror on the wall above the desk was cracked and pitted, with chips and scratches around the edges, but she could still see herself so I blocked her view and took her hair in my hand, pulling it all into one thick pony tail, securing it with the tie she’d had in before.

“You look just like you to me,” I said, working to slice through the shank of hair with the dull scissors. “Your hair doesn’t make you who you are. I can’t believe I have to tell you this. Don’t they make girls read books about this kind of stuff?” 

The ponytail was six inches long at least and I put it in her lap. The rest of her hair hung haphazardly around her face, hanging just below her chin. Her eyes were still that mossy hazel that reminded me of the forest, even brighter now that her hair was so pale. Her rosy lips were darker, the pink in her cheeks stood out more. Still she was frowning, running her fingers through the dead ponytail in her hand. I did my best to part her hair in the center and take off another inch or so, trying to hold the scissors steady, trying to make it look like…something intentional, like I knew what I was doing.  Guys cut each other's hair in prison with the shittiest black market underground scissors, but usually it was just to get it all off to get rid of the lice or short enough that no one could grip and rip it out. 

“This is good,” I said after another ten minutes. “A good change. It’s time to let the old things die.” I stood between her legs, crouching down to look her in the eye, checking the ends to make sure they were relatively even. “Rey Gilchrist from the Farm, Kylo Ren from Edgecombe Prison, those things are gone,” I said, with a bit more vehemence than I’d intended. “We’re out of New York, away from the Farm and the bounties and all of that. We can do what we want, take over the world, whatever. We can start over.”

She’d been looking down at her lap but now her eyes flicked up to meet mine, her head tipped a bit as if she were considering something. 

“And you?” She asked, the tiniest smile on her lips. “What are you going to change?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, setting the scissors on the desk and brushing the bits of hair from her shoulders, rubbing my thumb over her collarbone. I was still sore, but a blowjob wasn't out of the question. You know, as gratitude for the haircut. 

She stood then and switched places with me, pushing me down into the chair. 

“Sit,” she mimicked.

Her hair was platinum in the sunlight, framing her jaw and exposing the length of her slender neck. She was smiling. I’d made her smile. I realized I hadn’t thought about the ache in my side in nearly an hour. 

“Stay,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

She sauntered past me in her jeans and white tank top. It was thin and tight and I could see the shadow of her nipples through the fabric but she didn’t seem to mind. In fact, there was a whole dominant air about her as she made her way to the bathroom, as if she were in on some plan that I wasn’t allowed to know, that little smile on her face, lopsided, knowing. She came out of the bathroom with a little bar of soap, a washcloth and a disposable razor and set them all on the desk. While she lathered up the soap on the washcloth she leant against the edge of the desk, between my spread thighs. 

“At the Farm everyone had to stay clean shaven," she said, tucking my hair back behind my ears. " _For sanitary purposes_ is what they said but I think it’s just because they wanted one more thing they could control. It kept everyone looking fresh and clean and like a row of little dolls they could take pictures of for the media. I used to help out my roommates when they weren’t feeling well after procedures or testing. It felt weird though, because it’s so intimate…shaving.”

The soap was warm on my cheeks and she swiped the warm lather down my neck, behind my ears. Then she went back to the bathroom and came back with a plastic cup full of warm water before taking her place between my legs again. Something had changed in her. There was a power, a confidence that she’d never shown me before and I wanted to bend her right over the desk and fuck her silly. 

“Now stay still,” she said, touching the disposable razor to my cheek, her hand on my forehead, tipping my head backwards just a bit. She said her next words with slow purpose, looking me in the eye. “ _I don’t want to hurt you_.”

For the first few strokes of the razor she was silent, only the sound of metal on skin and the little breathy humming noises of approval she made when she saw her handiwork. But once she’d drawn the blade over my Adam’s Apple she sighed and looked me in the eye.

“I feel the conflict in you, Kylo,” she said. “I have from the very beginning.”

A smile, a rinse, another swipe.

“You want me so badly to believe that you are nothing but a monster, evil, a criminal, ‘a guy from prison’; but I know there’s something more.”

Another swipe, her thumb brushing over my upper lip, fingertips on my cheek. I could see down the front of her shirt, a bit of soap slid down between her breasts. A thrum of need bubbled up, rushed to my cock and I adjusted how I was sitting to hide it. 

“You keep slipping. You keep showing me the real Kylo Ren: the swimmer, the nature lover, the protector. I just wish…” she shook her head then and pulled out the washcloth, still warm, and ran it over my cheeks and neck, clearing away the little remaining bits of hair and soap. 

“What? What do you wish?” Whatever it was, I wanted to get it for her, show her that I could.

“I wish you would show me more.” 

She held my face in her hands and tipped my chin up. Her eyes were sad, disappointed. I was suddenly reminded of my mother, my mother’s face when she found out I was going to prison, that her _little boy_ was a gangster. Whatever would she tell the garden club? My mother knew me better than anyone in the world, better than my father, any of my friends, any of my enemies, any of my forgotten collateral tag-a-longs. When I was a child she'd assured me that she would love me forever, that there was nothing I could do to lose a mother's love. And so I’d shown her every part of me... and still she’d left me alone, abandoned to fend for myself, to live with myself when I let her down. She didn’t like what she saw.

I reached up to wrap my hand around the back of Rey's neck to hold her in place. I felt my lip twitch in a bit of anger and her knowing little smile, her surprise spa day seduction was over. The scared little mouse came back, her eyes wide. Still I pulled her in and kissed her hard on the mouth, sucking at her tongue, invading her, holding tight to the back of her neck, my teeth sinking into her lower lip. She didn’t resist, sitting down astride my thighs, her hands on my shoulders, her own hips rocking forward. It’s what she wanted. She wanted me to empty my soul into her after emptying my balls and I knew that would only end in disaster. It didn’t mean we couldn’t have something along the way though. What more did she need to know if it was clear she already liked fucking the Kylo she knew?

“There’s nothing more to tell, Schatzi. Time to understand that maybe there’s no sweet handsome prince inside this beast after all.”

She shrugged out of my grip and slunk away with her supplies. As she made her way back to the bathroom I heard her sigh and once she was locked behind the door a single, lonely sniff.


	21. Red Satin

REY

By then I was used to his sudden bouts of defensive cruelty, the show he put on to prove how dark he was. And even though it still hurt, it was like a bee sting, sudden and intense but short lived, leaving a tender spot behind. Still, I stayed in the bathroom for a long time to soothe it.

For a heartless thug he did an OK job cutting my hair into something resembling a style. I futzed with it in the mirror, snipping at some errant locks, evening out the bottom. I hated that he was right. It had barely been two weeks but I certainly wasn’t the same Rey I was back in New York, and it was silly to mourn the loss of her. There was something more stark, edgy, flawed, something older about how I looked now. I wasn’t the starry eyed adventure girl I’d been when we’d met. In that short time I’d had a taste of real fear, real violence, real anger. I looked at the closed bathroom door. I’d had a taste of other things too…things I didn’t think I’d ever feel. He’d shown me raw, feral passion, need. I'd felt blinding, mind numbing ecstasy. It wasn’t soft, slow building romance; it was fiery and nearly painful, just like the world we lived in and it seemed right…for us. It was confusing and surprising and unexpected. Just when I was sure that he was only using me for sex he would show me moments of affection, he would reveal little pieces of his heart that I was sure he’d never shown anyone else. Just when I was sure that I was nothing to him he would pull me out of the clutches of danger, risking his life, everything he had to save me. He was imperfect and damaged and dark, but there was still light in him. I could feel it. There was light behind those beautiful amber eyes that I wanted to bring to the surface. But we needed time. Time when we weren’t running, planning, plotting, surviving. We needed him healthy. We just needed to get us through Chicago and get us to the Island.

I looked through the little backpack of clothes I now owned, washed out some underwear and hung it to dry, scrubbed the blood stains from two of my t-shirts, leaving them to soak, and my fingers brushed over the red satin nightie I’d bought. New hair, new attitude. The fabric was smooth and cool beneath my fingertips. I shook it out and held it in front of me, examining my reflection in the mirror, then hung it on the hook on  the back of the door.

New Rey.

 

KYLO

 

I felt better, but the pills made me tired, nauseated on an empty stomach. Yet without them moving too much twisted the wound and sent bolts of agony through my nervous system. So instead of the Vicodin, which was dwindling and would bring at least twenty bucks a pill if we got desperate, I rolled up a joint and sat by the window, looking out at the broken down bridges over the river, the boarded up buildings and shattered windows lining the streets. A few people puttered around, lingering on corners, most of them headed down to the flats to do their business. Couples came and went from the hotel we stayed in and it was easy to deduce what sort of "business" was being conducted as the giggly blondes pulled greasy men twice their age through the front door. I held the smoke until my lungs burned, until my eyes pulsed with each heartbeat, then slowly exhaled up towards the ceiling.

Behind me, Rey puttered around the room in her own little way (in silence), no doubt pouting again. Mean old Kylo had broken her heart again. She was mumbling under her breath, counting things, separating the money into piles, organizing the medication and first aid supplies, things that really didn't need doing, but passed the time and soothed her anger, so I let her play house.

She stood next to the bed and folded the t-shirts she’d bought for me. Dusty red, navy blue, colors I wouldn't have picked, but they were nice. She’d found a black hoodie with some weird red emblem on it, but it looked soft and…well it looked cozy, OK? It occurred to me looking at it that Autumn was coming. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to spend it in Wisconsin. 

“Hey,” I said, interrupting her endless process. 

She turned, eyebrows raised, feigning some sort of bored, apathetic expression. I held the joint out to her and she dropped the mask, shrinking back and shaking her head.

“Oh, no thanks…I..um…I don’t…”

“You didn’t,” I clarified. “But maybe you do now, eh?” I held it out again and she stepped closer. “Look, you’re not going to flip out and jump out the window like they told you in school, it just…it’ll take the edge off.  Do I look wasted to you?”

She flicked her eyes up to meet mine and smiled halfway, shaking her head, shrugging. I stood and held the joint to her lips.

“Go on, just a little bit. Your fidgeting is making me crazy and at the very least you’ll calm down,” I said, ducking down to look her in the eye. “Schatzi…”

“Fine! I’ll do it!” 

She leaned forward and closed her lips around the cigarette, taking the tiniest little toke I’d ever seen. It was sort of adorable. Her eyes squinted up, her nose wrinkled and I knew she couldn’t hold it. So before she had a chance to exhale I kissed her, keeping the air between us as she tried to breathe. The acrid smoke slipped out from her lips and into my mouth and I kissed her harder, dragging my tongue over hers, pulling her against my chest. She squealed and pulled free, her cheeks blazing red, eyes shining, pushing me away as she coughed and sputtered for air.

“Good girl,” I said, patting her head. 

 

  
REY

 

I took two more hits with his guidance, holding the smoke for a bit longer each time. I felt a bit warm, a bit more...content, but I wasn’t sure if that meant I was high. He switched his position as he smoked and winced, touching the bandage on his stomach.

“Is it awful?” I asked quietly. It had been awful, watching him scream, his eyes wide and fearful. For a moment he’d looked like a child, looking to me to fix it, to stop it.

“Nah,” he said. “I’ve had worse. Or maybe I’ve just taken enough pills and smoked enough weed to think that.”

His smile was soft and genuine and with his freshly shaved face he looked completely different, a different man. Lighter.

I leaned forward to look out the window towards the river and further off towards the slate grey lake under a clear, twilight sky.

“It’s pretty, actually,” I said pressing my fingers to the glass. It was cool and I tapped out a little rhythm rested my forehead against the pane. 

Kylo snorted.

“You must have not seen very many cities in your life.”

“I told you I’ve never even been out of New York before,” I said, but for some reason his little dig didn’t hurt. I could tell he was relaxed, just poking fun. Two friends joking around. That's what people did. What they used to do.

“Well my my, goody two shoes…this is quite a month of firsts for you, isn’t it?” He whispered into my ear, his voice dark and tempting. I pulled away to see his lopsided grin, one eyebrow arched high. In his expression I suddenly saw more beauty…the angle of his jaw, the curve of his nose, even the scar that dragged down his cheek added a certain raw appeal.  I was grateful for the cool glass on my flushed face. 

He pinched off the end of the joint and slunk away, pulling a new pair of underwear off the pile of clothes. His progress toward the bathroom was slow and relaxed with a small, comfortable smile on his face. Before closing the door he dragged a hand through his hair and over his newly shaved cheeks and when he caught my eye, he winked. 

I drank some water to get the taste of the pot out of my mouth and flopped down on the bed, staring out the window at the dusky skyline again, the open expanse, the possibility. I was getting frustrated, or bored, or something else I couldn’t name. Fidgety. Giddy, but also tired, lazy. I just wanted to go to bed and dream, to lay still and think. The only pajamas I had was the red satin nightie. I looked over towards the bathroom door and groaned. He had to have seen it. Would he demand that I put it on? Make a joke about it? Insult me for thinking I could pull it off? Or worst of all would he say nothing at all, leaving me to stew, wondering what he was thinking. I sat down and ate a package of cheese cracker sandwiches and waited. 

The door opened and Kylo came out smiling, grinning actually, ear to ear. He’d taken a shower and his hair was wet, slicked back from his face, making his dark, glittery eyes stand out even more. A clean gauze patch covered his wound and his skin had a healthy glow. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t keep my eyes from wandering down to the bulge in his underwear. He fake yawned and stretched. 

“My goodness. So late, Blondie,” he said. “We should go to bed.”

I couldn’t find any words, any argument; only nodded. Honestly, I couldn’t resist him. I couldn’t resist the truth. I wanted him to touch me, to make me feel that blinding, all consuming heat that blocked out everything else. That’s what would relieve the pressure for me. That’s what would calm me down, blunt the edges of our stress. That was the feeling I wanted to hold in my lungs. I watched as he climbed into bed and folded his hands behind his head, leaning against the wall, smiling at me as if I were getting ready to perform, as if he could read my thoughts.

“I’ll…I’ll just go clean up.”

“OK baby,” he purred. “You do that.”

 

In the bathroom I peed and splashed cool water on my face, rinsing my dry mouth out again. I rearranged my hair and pinched my cheeks to pink them up and finally slipped into the nightgown, leaving my clothes in a pile on the counter. It was nearly obscene how low it was cut, showing the sides of my breasts, my hardened nipples poking out the thin fabric. Still, it fit perfectly and felt luxurious sliding over my skin, sending a little thrill of arousal through my blood. I squeezed my thighs together, wondering what sort of Kylo I would get tonight. Whatever it was he wanted to give me, I told myself: I was ready.

The one Kylo I didn't expect was the sleeping one. When I walked out of the bathroom the lights were all off and Kylo was turned on his side away from me, his breaths long and deep, fluttering through his lips.The blanket was on his hip, revealing the broad expanse of his back, expanding and rippling his hawk tattoo as he slept. 

"Kylo?"

He didn't answer and I pouted in frustration, finally admitting to myself that that feeling I couldn't name earlier was nothing more exotic than plain old horniness, and now my one solution to the problem was sound asleep. I sighed and slipped into bed beside him, pulling the covers up before curling against his back.

 

 

I woke up to the feeling of cool air on my stomach, warm lips against my skin. 

“Did you buy this just for me, Schatzi?” He whispered, slipping the night gown up over my breasts, revealing my entire body to his gaze, his huge, warm hands running the length of my body. “So pretty.”

The room was dark, only a hint of amber light from the city allowing me to see his flashing eyes and wide smile. He crouched over me and the light caught the angle of his jaw as he bent down to kiss my belly again, his hand heavy on my breastbone, dipping his tongue into my navel, eyes focused on mine.

“Kylo,” I spoke without knowing what to say next. Maybe I just wanted to say his name. 

He bent to kiss the tops of my thighs, the little bumps of my hip bones, his breath hot between my legs. Sliding down further on the bed, he slipped his hands behind my knees, pushing them up and back, humming his approval as he looked me over, so close…examining almost. He was silent, his head tilted to the side, one thick finger slowly tickling between my pussy lips, up to my clit. My breath hitched in my lungs, my cheeks hot with embarrassment at how thoroughly he’d exposed me, how closely he was watching me. How did I look? How did I smell? I put my hand on his shoulder to push him away, but then his tongue, soft and warm, slipping through my wetness, dipping deep, just as sensual and sleek as when he kissed my mouth.

“I…I can’t…” my hand fell limp at my side as he licked at my blooming lips, each slow drag from top to bottom opening me further, lulling me into a trance. His nose pressed against my swollen clit and I was struck through with a lightning bolt of pleasure. My hands fisted the blanket, my back arching off the bed as he pushed my legs back further, wider, his tongue sneaking down lower to press against the tightly closed bud of my ass.

“Wait…Kylo…I just…wait...”

He stopped, closing his lips around my clit and hissing “shhhh”; the sound vibrating through me, my thighs trembling in his grip as he licked and kissed my slick lips. But he moved too slowly, his strokes agonizing, deliciously warm but not enough to give me any kind of release. So I pushed back, grinding against his mouth. He paused and sunk his teeth into the soft flesh of my thigh. I yelped and he looked up, letting go of my legs, sliding up to kiss my mouth. His lips were warm with the earthy, salty taste of myself on his tongue.

“Not very nice was it?” He asked, running his fingers over the bite mark on my leg. “Don’t go sending mixed messages, Schatzi. First you tell me to wait, then you’re fucking my tongue.” He kissed me again, his dick hard, dragging between my thighs. “That’s how little mouse gets in trouble.”

“I was…” I looked over his shoulder, not wanting to feel his stare, not wanting to look at his lips. “You were staring...so close…I was just…shy…embarrassed.”

“Fuck that, Blondie. Not when you’re with me,” he said, bending down to take one of my nipples between his teeth. “I want every part of you.”

I sunk my fingers into his hair as he sucked at the taut flesh, his hot, hard cock pushing at my entrance, slipping up and down. His fingers tickled over my skin, gentle over the bruise still healing beside my eye, a brush over the split in my lip, the marks on my throat. 

“I like this,” he said, slipping the nightie over my head completely and throwing it aside. “I like the color.” His lips trailed kisses down the length of my throat. “It suits you, but I like you naked better, I like my wild little mouse.” 

I was getting warmer, wetter and the sound of his voice, low and gravelly in my ear was like sinking into a bubblebath; sensual and soothing.

“I want to make every part feel good,” he whispered. “Tell me what you want.” He cradled my head in the crook of his arm, his eyes dark and searching. I tilted my hips against him and he shook his head. “Get down in the dirt, Schatzi. What do you want?”

His fingertips tickled over my scalp, the head of his cock inching forward. I could recall exactly how it felt the first time he’d slid in, the way it stretched and ached and filled me, my head spinning with arousal. Just thinking of it made my back arch off the bed, a whine escaping my lips as I dragged my fingernails over his back.

“I…I want to come,”

He shook his head again, pulling my hands away from him, sitting back on his heels: leaving me. 

“I can see that baby. But tell me what you want.”

He stroked himself, thumbing the head of his prick, biting his bottom lip, staring down at my naked body. I spread my legs wider, bending my knees, running my hand down over my belly, slipping down between my thighs to circle my clit. Watching me pulled a growl from his parted lips and his eyes revealed a hunger, a need that I hadn’t seen before and I realized that the question wasn’t solely designed to bring me _down in the dirt_ , as he said. When I realized what the answer was, what he was looking for, I knew it was his way of apologizing for our night in the abandoned house, the rainy afternoon in the car. He was making sure I wanted what he wanted, what he wanted so badly to give me. And in realizing that, I wanted it even more. So I rolled my hips and sunk two fingers inside, nearly purring with delight as I stared into his burning eyes. He groaned, leaning forward to brace himself on one hand and I pulled my hand up, tracing my wet fingers over his lips and over his tongue. He sucked them deep into his mouth, licking them clean.

“I want you to make me come,” I said. “I want you to fuck me until I come.”

A smile split his face, wide and wicked and gorgeous and he slid up to cover my body with his own, his length prodding at my center with agonizing slowness. 

“I know you do, Schatzi. I just needed to hear it. Give me your hand.” Tugging at my wrist, he pulled my hand down between us. “Open yourself,” he said, looking down. “Feel me fucking into you. I want you to feel every inch sliding inside.”

I shivered at the hiss of his words and the feel of the thick, hard, yet velvet soft shaft of skin slipping between my legs. So I did as he asked, my fingers in a wide V as he pushed between them, filling me slowly, his hand on my jaw, forehead pressed against mine so I couldn’t look away from him. 

“I told you once not to run from me,” he said, his voice gravelly, strained as he started thrusting into me. “And now I’m telling you not to hide.” His hips snapped hard against mine and I pulled my hand free to dig into his hip. “Don’t cover yourself, don’t shy away. Don’t hide any of this from me.”

His thrusts grew fast, punishing and hard, his rhythm fast and erratic, his tongue licking deep into my panting mouth as I chased his kiss. It was rough and it was relentless but it was different, like he said. Everything about it was different. My whole body tingled, muscles twitching as the walls of my pussy pulled him in deeper, clenching around him.

“All of this is mine,” he growled, his lips latching onto my throat. “You’re mine now. Not the state, not The Farm…”

My climax crashed through like a pulsing wave, rippling out from where we were joined. I grabbed onto his back, clinging to him as if I’d fly to pieces were he not my anchor. He bit hard into the skin of my shoulder as his own orgasm took over, his body stiffening on top of me, his skin hot and damp, sliding against me with his final thrusts. When finally he emptied deep inside me he held me tight to his chest, his mouth near my ear, panting, breathy...

“You’re mine."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's call this the "season finale" as I'm going to finish up some fest pieces and other WIPs and then go on Christmas break to see my family :) Don't worry, we'll return after Christmas (after we've all seen TROS and either need to party or console each other) :)


	22. Security

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back friends! New Year, post TROS, Reylo is still raging through my blood. We enter the last third of this story with joy and optimism.

KYLO

 

We slept for a long time. It was that kind of deep, dreamless sleep that makes you forget where you are. There was something comforting about having her head on my shoulder, her arm across my chest. There was something soothing about listening to her breathing as it fell into a slow, steady pattern, feeling the pulse slow in her veins. It felt…clean; different from anything I’d ever felt with a woman. It wasn’t arousing or “hot” or any of the things that I thought I was using her to feel. It was just…good. Her breath was warm on my neck, her calf smooth, sliding against mine as she changed position, breasts soft on my arm; and I lay there just feeling it for as long as I could. When I couldn’t wait any longer I pulled myself out from under her and got up to pee. Checking my bandages, I was surprised to find myself healing faster than I expected. But she was right, it was still an ugly wound and I still needed someone professional to look at it. Hopefully her little friend Rose wouldn’t mind helping me out.

In her organizing the day before she’d put the tight little cylinder of money on the desk along with a carefully written note documenting everything she’d bought on her outing, as if she were afraid of what I’d do when I counted it. I smiled and tucked the money into my jeans after taking a quick shower. Maybe we could go grab breakfast at a restaurant somewhere. I missed that about the last place we shacked up. Once we were safe, maybe I could take her to get more clothes…buy her something that made her eyes light up. Every day that passed there were things I wanted to show her, do for her, things I wanted her to see. As shitty as this world had become there were still things she’d been deprived of. 

While waiting for her to wake I sat on the edge of the bed and flipped on the old flatscreen t.v., clicking through the dozens of useless channels playing old shows that kept people calm, reminded them of their youth. Watching six episodes of The Simpsons made you feel like maybe things were actually normal; not crumbling to pieces around you. Most of the live stuff was just droning wall to wall news. Smiling talking heads read pre approved scripts, cheerily informing us of political divisiveness, riots, violence, sickness. Every day there was a new weather disaster somewhere wiping out some town, washing away bridges, drying up reservoirs. Every week new animals went extinct, new epidemics rooted themselves in densely populated cities. Borders were closing down, less planes and boats leaving the country, fewer people let in from the outside in the name of ‘security’. Word was that there were still some safe, healthy, flourishing places in Europe, up North, but they weren’t keen to advertise. I didn’t blame them. They saw what the States did to themselves and didn’t quite feel like inviting that nightmare in through the front door. The world was closing us out, letting us kill ourselves off, like putting a bunch of rabid dogs in quarantine. I flipped past a channel and quickly back again when I saw Rey’s face.

“Governor San Tekka has issued a desperate plea this morning on behalf of his daughter, Margaret, now in a coma for six months.”

I turned the volume down and looked over my shoulder where she was still sleeping. The veritable mug shot from the Farm barely resembled the woman I knew at all, and not just because of her newly cut and dyed hair. There was a sort of bright, naive innocence, the kind of girl who would smile for a stark ID pic, her hair pulled up into a neat, high ponytail. So prim and proper, everything about her buttoned up tight. 

The screen suddenly changed to a tired looking old man. So much older from the last time I’d seen the Governor on the news swearing that everything was returning to normal, the best years of our lives.

“Look how old you got,” I said, laughing.  It felt right for the powerful to suffer, for the rich to feel loss, for the people up in their penthouses to be thrown down in the dirt. His misery warmed my heart.

“This girl, Rey Gilchrist,” the governor spat, his face pinched with rage. “Had the power in her hands to save my daughter’s life. A few simple procedures would have not only given my daughter these last six months of joy, but would have secured the Gilchrist family’s future for decades. We are pleading with the public to help us find Ms. Gilchrist and bring her back to the research hospital where we may still be able to make a difference in my young, beautiful daughter’s quality of life. A daughter who had great plans to help the poor, to provide food for the hungry…a daughter who wanted to make a difference.” He didn’t mention how some of his very own policies had made more people poor, thrown starving people on the street, and taken healthcare from hundreds of thousands. “The previous reward for helping us locate Ms. Gilchrist was $20,000, but the situation has grown dire and I am now raising the stakes: $50,000 and no questions asked.”

“Fuck.”

She was awake. I turned and grinned at her over my shoulder, projecting an air of confident calm that she wasn’t buying for a second. She was holding the sheet up around her chest, watching the television with a pale, frowning face. I crawled up beside her and put my arm around her shoulders.

“Fuck what? They won’t find you Rey. They think you’re still in New York.”

“What about the guys in Pennsylvania? If they told anyone they’ll know we’re on the move.”

“Who the fuck are those assholes going to tell? Ma Kettle at the restaurant? Thursday night poker guys? Don’t worry about it,” I said, getting up to find a cigarette. “We’ll leave for Wisconsin today.”

“A few simple procedures,” she muttered, dragging herself out of bed and walking around the room wrapped in a white sheet like some greek goddess, still so modest, still hiding. “Do you know what those procedures were? Not just bone marrow and blood like you’d think.  She needed new lungs and and a new liver, her old one destroyed by years of medication. Simple procedures that would leave me dead from donating every part of me, but no one cares about the donor.”

She was pacing, chewing her thumbnail and I could see she was terrified. It was the same sort of frantic panic I’d seen in her eyes when she’d realized she was stuck with me back in the city. So I stopped her. But instead of slapping her, this time I just stood in her path and grabbed her by the shoulders, ducking down so I could look into her eyes, making sure that she heard me; making sure that she listened.

“Rey, they aren’t going to find you. I won’t let them find you. Stop chewing your nails, get dressed, help me pack up the stuff that you insisted on throwing all over the room and we’ll leave. Right now. Do you understand me?”

“We just have to be careful. We’re getting close to Chicago and I don’t want to -“

I held tight, still squeezing her shoulders while she struggled and twisted, huffing with frustration, her brow deeply furrowed.

“Rey listen to me. Look at me. I said that you aren’t going back, and I meant it. If someone wants to take you, no matter who they are, they’re going to have to kill me to do it. And you know I’m not fucking around about that.”

Her eyes drifted to the floor but she nodded and I let her go, throwing my pile of clothes into the open duffel bag at the end of the bed.  Behind me I could hear her shuffle out of the white sheet and change into jeans and a t-shirt, her actions punctuated by the occasional dramatic sniff. When I picked up the remote to turn off the t.v. she sat on the edge of the bed.

 

REY

 

“Thank you,” I said quietly, “for saying that.”

He just shrugged and threw some more things in the bag, leaving out the weed and the antibiotics. I’d never seen him moving with more purpose, more focus. Still I felt compelled to explain my freak out.

“When my parents sold me out, gave me up; when they basically traded me in for cars and a mortgage and…things…I felt like I lost my family. I lost everything. I felt like they were willing to let me die, willing to let me suffer all these painful procedures and tests; sell off my organs because their shit was more important. I just became a…I was a thing, an investment asset.” Still he said nothing, didn’t even look at me. “And I guess maybe I do all of this stuff now, as a runner, a trader, whatever…I get all these things for people because maybe I’m hoping that one day one of them will say ‘gosh Rey, this is incredible. You’re incredible. We can’t live without you…” 

Silence. I rolled my eyes at my own words, waving them off as if they were floating in the air in front of me. 

“It’s stupid,” I said. “I just…I think I was looking for a replacement…a new…family. So thanks for saying you would stand up for me, Kylo. It feels good.”

I felt stupid making these big emotional pronouncements; thanking someone who had me on an electronic monitoring anklet, someone who had called me nothing more than a fuck toy. Someone who had also treated me as nothing more than an asset. But there was no way he could possibly understand how much it meant to me knowing he was willing to risk his own safety for me, something he’d already proven, something he’d already been scarred for. He’d been wandering the room wearing just his jeans and bare feet, his wound covered with fresh gauze, the skin around it still pink but not nearly as harsh looking as the night before. I didn’t think he was listening to my miserable diatribe, but when I finished, when he heard me say his name he put down his cigarette and came over to where I was sitting on the edge of the bed. 

“Rey,” he said, going down to his knees between my legs. He took my face in his hands, thumbs stroking over my cheeks. I closed my eyes, just taking a minute to feel it, to bask in the rare instance of a gentle touch from his fingers, to listen to the soft, rolling lilt in his voice, soothing as my name rolled off his tongue. 

And then he was kissing me, still knelt on the floor, his hands roaming beneath my shirt as his tongue slipped over mine. He moved in closer and I wrapped my legs around him, pulling him to my chest, my hands running through his hair. I was sure he was going to push me backwards, climb on top of me, tug at the waistband of my jeans. Instead he simply held me in his arms, simply kissed me, touching my skin, stroking down my spine, breaking away only when he needed to breathe. It was then that he graced me with one of his rare and beautiful smiles; a wide, sincere grin that lit up his whole face. 

“I would stand up for you,” he said, pressing his forehead to mine. “I would fight for you.” He kissed me one last time. “Trust me Schatzi, I won’t let anyone take you away.”

  
  
KYLO

  
We were nearly out the door when one of my burners rang. It was an old phone, one I’d used back in New York. We hadn’t had cell coverage for the past week or so and now that we were within city limits there were a couple of messages from customers waiting on their product, a few lenders making vague threats, people wondering if I was still around. But the call itself was from a number I didn’t recognize.

“Ren,” I said.

“Where are you guys? Mitaka said you’re not in New York anymore. None of our crew have seen you in the usual spots.”

It was Hux, angry and nosey as usual. I sighed and sat on the bed. Obviously Snoke had been trying to track me from day one. Rey stopped what she was doing, casually trying to listen in from across the room.

“I’m somewhere not in New York, does that help at all?”

“Look jagoff, Rose wants to make sure that Rey is safe…” he paused for a long time after that. “Snoke said you guys should come up. To the island. Both of you.”

He said it like someone had a knife to his throat and I had to stifle a laugh. Instead I just raised my eyebrows and Rey mouthed “what?”, moving to sit next to me, now openly trying to get her ear to the phone. I tugged it away. Something in Hux’s offer didn’t seem right and I didn’t want her getting too excited. Even if Snoke were open to me coming to the island I couldn’t imagine Hux or Finn agreeing to it. It was clear when last we spoke that I wasn’t exactly on their Christmas card list. And if I wasn’t welcome, Rey wasn’t going. 

“Both of us, eh? How do you know Rey is even with me anymore? How do you know I didn’t leave her behind in New York? Sell her off?” I looked at her and shook my head, rolling my eyes and she blushed.

“How the fuck do I know, asshole?” Hux spat. “Is she with you or not? Rose is going fucking crazy and I’m tired of her bitching. If you cut her and left her in the Hudson just tell me and hang up.”

He was yelling and Rey could clearly hear him.

“I’m here,” she said. “I’m safe.”

Hux sighed on the other end, as if finally winning a hard-fought battle that took all of thirty seconds. 

“Good,” he said. “That’s good. Listen, there’s a small boat with an outboard motor just northwest of Northport on the shoreline of Port des Morts Park, hidden under a bunch of dead shrubs and tarps. There’s enough gas you can take that over to the island and we’ll meet you there, bring you over to the camp and you can…settle in.”

He hung up before I could reject the offer, before I could ask what the catch was, why Snoke hadn’t called me himself. But when I looked at Rey she was beaming with victory, every bit of fear and tension from a few hours earlier completely dissolved. She squealed and hugged me, kissing me with a hard, loud smack before pulling back, laughing. It was the most beautiful I’d ever seen her, the most bright and alive. So I swallowed down my reservations with one last Vicodin and helped her pack. We lugged our shit back to the car and after filling up with gas, we head off West towards Snoke’s Island.

 


	23. The Obelisk

KYLO

  
Hux’s call had helped to loosen her up once we were back on the road. She commented on the scenery and held her face up to the sun with her eyes closed and the windows rolled down. Fall was coming and the breezes were cool off the lake, a few leaves already changing, big puffy clouds floating across one of those painfully blue skies that only show up in Autumn. Her newly shorn hair was blowing around her face, some of the strands sticking to her lips when she spoke. She told me about how she used to have more freckles when she was a kid, how her hair would turn almost copper colored in the summer from sun and chlorine. Her mom would put it in three little knots on the back of her head so it wouldn’t get tangled while she was running around. It was one of her earliest memories and she shared it with me. She asked me about my youth, about how I did in school, my friends, more questions about the swimming. Mostly I answered in short, shallow bursts if only because I couldn’t imagine that anything I told her would be too fascinating. 

“Do you look like your mom or your dad?” She finally asked, and I could almost see her face drain of color; like her mouth had said the words without her permission. “Sorry, I know you —“

“My dad,” I said, doing my best to remember exactly which features favored him. I remembered mom as bright and beautiful, that sort of young mom perfection…with shiny dark hair twisted into braids and warm, chocolate colored eyes. I remembered them clearest of all. Her eyes were expressive, kind. It didn’t pass down to me. “Dad was the tall one, I got his build, his…mouth I guess. Temper. To be honest I can’t quite remember; dad is dead and I haven’t seen my mom since I went to prison.”

“Do you want to?” She asked, sitting sideways in her seat, her eyes bright and energized as if she’d just discovered a new puzzle to solve, uncovered a new treasure map. She pulled her foot up and tucked it under her other thigh; a tangle of delicate, nimble limbs.

“Want to what?” I kept my eyes on the road, my grip tight enough to hurt. “See my mom?”

“Yeah, see your mom! I can’t imagine…I mean, actually I can…but I miss my mother every day. I miss my family every day. You can’t really be happy being this alone.”

“Awww, but I thought I had you, Schatzi,” I joked, giving her some of those wide, pouty, puppy dog eyes. In truth I just wanted to change the subject. 

“I’m nothing,” she said, looking out the window again her chin balanced in her palm. “Your mother though…you should find her.”

“Yeah well, Mom made it painfully clear when I was arrested that I’d embarrassed and failed her,” I said, remembering the way she had sighed and shook her head, her eyes filled with tears as if I’d been found dead and not just beating up lowlifes for a loan shark. “She told me she didn’t even know her own son anymore. So no, I don’t think she’s too eager for me to find her.”

She opened her mouth again, but thought better of whatever it was she was going to say and I was grateful for it. Grateful for the silence. Of course I wanted to see my mother. I was only eighteen when I went in. A kid. Of course I missed her every day. I just wasn’t in the habit of whining about it all the time, wailing and gnashing my teeth. Were there actually people who didn’t want things to go back to how they were, who didn’t want those days back? Of course I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life alone, hadn’t I told her that? Couldn’t she tell?

  
We drove through most of Indiana in silence until she started telling me all about the island that Snoke was building the settlement on, the veritable Utopia the we could be a part of, growing our own food, singing around a campfire, repopulating the earth or some shit. 

It was true that Snoke and Hux and I were close while we were inside; because you needed to be close to someone on the inside. Someone had to have your back. But I’d mostly lost contact with them after they moved to the halfway house, a step I was able to forego because of my connections in the underworld. So without my family to return to, no college, no job, no money, the only choice I had was to return to what Palpatine had taught me; only this time I told myself that I was the big dog, the boss, the supreme leader. My dangerous dealings and “questionable” clientele left the cell-block-boys-gone-good feeling skittish, worried that somehow they’d end up right where they started, as if it were that easy to stay on the straight and narrow…to just wake up one day and decide to be good and it would stick. Thing is, no one gave a shit about piddly little crimes like mine anymore. No one reported drug deals or muggings or black market phones. Although boy did they all come running when they needed something or their coke ran out or their anklets needed to be deactivated and I was expected to just fall all over myself to help them for old times’ sake, and usually without turning a profit.

“And it’s an island, Kylo! We could go fishing, you could teach me how to canoe. Rose even said that since the water levels rose, there’s more swimmable beaches and it warms up fast in the summer,” she said. She was nearly giggling, her smile wide and bright, crinkling up her eyes at the corners. I already missed the way the sun looked on her brown hair. I wanted it back. “It’s perfect for you!” 

When the parasites came banging on my door, there was never anything in it for me. 

Maybe that’s why this time I just took my own reward.

 

I’d taken enough medication and smoked enough weed that my side didn’t hurt as much as expected. Still, I got tired faster than I’d like and so before we got close to Chicago I pulled over for a nap, a snack and a couple more painkillers. Rey got out and peed before stretching across the hood, lifting her face to the afternoon sun. She’d bought herself a pair of huge black sunglasses in Cleveland and I had to laugh at how much she reminded me of one of those old school movie stars with her bleach blond hair and long tanned legs, sprawled out on a car like an old pin up calendar you’d see in an auto shop. There was barely any traffic and it was a beautiful day so I pulled out a cigarette and sat on the hood beside her, staring out to the west. 

“What did you want to be, back when we were kids? When things weren’t like this?” She asked, her hands folded behind her head. 

Her shirt was pushed up on her stomach and I could see her navel, her jeans slung low on her hips. I wondered to myself if we had any time for more than a little nap, what she would do if I just stuck my hand down the front of her pants and made her come right there on the side of the road.

“Why?” I asked, thinking better of it and taking a long drag on my smoke instead.

“I’m just…I want to know more about you,” she said with a shrug, her voice lower and less confident than before. “I only ask because I wanted to be an archaeologist…an explorer like those old movies, Indiana Jones? Remember?”

I did. My family used to watch them all the time.

“I was thinking about it because when things started going bad, when I was inside and they started slicing me up…I knew that I’d never get the chance to explore the world like I wanted to. I sort of just resigned myself to the fact that I’d never get to see anything but the inside of that hospital, never leave New York, never see the ocean or even just go to Canada. I was destined to be nothing but a...a fucking placeholder for another human being.” She sat up then, turning to look at me, her glasses pushed back on her head. “I was terrified when I met you. But you…I mean, without even trying you’ve given me more than anyone in my life has ever even tried to give.”

“I doubt that,” I said, flicking my cigarette out onto the road. “Before the Drop I’m sure your family was the picture of suburban tranquility.” 

It came out with a bit more venom than I’d intended, but it was all aimed inward.  I couldn’t remember a time when my parents weren’t working, doing things for everyone else in the world…community organizing, babysitting, delivering food, helping with political campaigns, anything they could to keep from spending time with me it seemed. Our family looked so ideal from the outside, particularly to those who reaped the benefits of their generosity. Yet when they weren’t working they were bickering, accusing, threatening, trying their best to keep the ugliness behind closed doors, but I wasn’t deaf. 

“Poor suburban tranquility,’ she said. “Nothing to be jealous of.”

I’d successfully ruined the moment again and she lay back with her glasses on, lips turned down into a frown.

“An architect,” I said. “I wanted to build my own house in the mountains one day. I can still see it when I close my eyes, sitting on a little lake, surrounded by cedar trees and giant pines, two floors, big windows, wrap around porch…a dog. Well I mean, I wouldn’t build the dog, but you know what I mean.”

She was smiling again and the relief was overwhelming. 

“What will we do when we get to Chicago?” She asked quietly. “There will be Farm people everywhere…hunters, maybe even checkpoints. I don’t want to come this far and have them take…”

“No one’s taking anyone,” I said, standing. “We’re going to drive right through and come out the other side and then we’re home free, got it? If there’s a checkpoint we bluff our way through it. You can be my wife…Kira…Kira…Ren, reformed stripper, sex maniac, baker of apple pies…” 

I made up the character from thin air and she laughed out loud, rolling her eyes, sliding off the roof of the car and heading back to the passenger seat. It was my job to keep her calm, to pretend like I didn’t have a fear in the world. But I meant what I told her. No one was taking her away from me. And I had the gun in the glove compartment to prove it.

 

REY

 

We drove through the broken and burnt out remains of Gary, Indiana and before long I could see the black and jagged skyline of Chicago on the shore of Lake Michigan. It was like a mirage, a hazy warning through the fog and pollution. We were close to civilization. I knew from my research that The Farm was in the heart of downtown. ( _with beautiful views of the Lake!_ ) It was a white building with bright lights, cheerful and modern looking just like the one in New York, belying the butchery within. 

Cities that had branches of The Farm flourished. Profits poured into their coffers, thousands of jobs were created, investors and donors and families all came to surround this place of “miracles” both medical and monetary. The bounty list was no doubt posted on every street corner, every news site, broadcast every hour. If the Governor’s daughter was dying it was only a matter of time before he upped the reward again. I curled my feet up beneath me and slouched against the window, watching the city grow larger, more distinct on the horizon. There were more cars on the road, fed in from all directions and I worried that they were all staring at me. So I kept my head down and picked at my cuticles. 

Kylo turned on the radio. There were only a few stations left in the bigger cities, mostly news and information…propaganda. It only took fifteen minutes for my name to come up. 

“Ms. Gilchrist was last seen in Northern Pennsylvania, traveling with a male companion by car. It is unknown where she was heading, but she and her companion could be armed and are most certainly dangerous.”

He let out a snorting laugh. “Male companion. What am I, a border collie?”

They continued the report, detailing the sob story of the Governor’s daughter and how I’d basically murdered her by not allowing them to harvest my organs. Kylo shifted into a higher gear and switched lanes, weaving between three other cars before gunning the engine. A sign above our heads read “94 West - Wisconsin”and the buildings of the city raced by on our right. In the distance I could see it: a narrow white building like an obelisk with white lights running up the sides and a bright neon logo…one blue arrow and one green arrow chasing each other in a circle with a white heart in the center.

“I’m scared,” I said, scanning the cars ahead of us for cops or roadblocks, something that would ruin it all. My heart was racing, beating hard enough, loud enough that I could feel it in my neck. I slipped my glasses on and pulled at my dry, hacked hair, trying to shroud my face. Maybe I was overreacting, overestimating my own importance. There were other people on the bounty list, people with higher rewards, who had actually committed crimes. Maybe it was just being near the facility that made my whole body tense up, my stomach churn.

“In a statement made to the public earlier today,” the report continued, “Gilchrist’s mother Margaret issued an emotional plea to her only daughter. ‘Rey. We’re all worried about you and we just want you home safe. Please Rey, wherever you are…know that we’re praying for you, that you will do the right thing. Come home Rey. Please.”

He said nothing but his hand slid across the seat and grabbed mine, lacing our fingers together, his eyes still on the road. He squeezed once and I stared out the window. Hearing her voice I expected to start crying, to feel my throat tighten, tears stinging my eyes. Instead I only felt heavy, hot anger. My own mother, who, as far as I could tell, hadn’t made a statement to the press since the day I disappeared from the Farm was now begging for my safe return. I could only assume it was because if I came running back she could then gather up a cool fifty grand in her arms as well. 

“She’s lying to you,” he said, switching to a station that was playing old music from the forties. He was still holding my hand and I noticed that I was clinging to it as if I’d fall out of the car were I to let go.  He didn’t mention that, only looked straight ahead. “But you know that, right? It’s like I said before, Schatzi. Time to let the old things die.”

The gray highway widened, the outer lanes crumbling with potholes, underpasses lined with tents and tiny makeshift homes made of boxes and pallets and duct tape. Up ahead I saw the telltale red and blue lights of a police car and held my breath, whispering a silent prayer that we’d get through. Kylo saw them too and took his hand away, gripping the steering wheel, rubbing his thumbs nervously over the leather. We were in the heart of the city and I could feel the buildings closing in, the traffic, the people. I moved away from the door, sitting closer to him.

The emergency lights got closer and Kylo reached across to the glove compartment and pulled out his gun, laying it on the seat between us. 

“Just in case,” he muttered, nervously mashing his lips together, his fingers drumming along the top of the steering wheel, eyes focused straight ahead.

I couldn’t stop staring at the gun. Were we going to kill someone? He was willing to kill someone for me? Or did he expect me to be the one to pull the trigger? 

“Kylo I—“

“Shhh. Look,” he said, nodding towards the lights.

They were pulled over on the side of the road where two small junk trucks had collided, running into the ditch. Scraps of metal and debris were scattered across the road and we had to crawl by at a snail’s pace. We drove past the accident carefully; one of the cops guiding traffic nodding in our direction. The cop didn’t give me a second look, just waved his arm and yelled at everyone to slow down. I closed my eyes and exhaled a sigh of relief and Kylo hit the gas, speeding North.

Before long the city was officially behind us, I could see it in the rearview mirror.  The sun was fading and the Farm building looked gold in the twilight, ominous, towering over everything else. It was there. It would always stand there.  But right now it was behind me. 

“We got through Kylo,” I said, nearly squealing like a child. “We got through the city.”

He nodded and put the gun back in the glove compartment. I felt light as air, nearly giggly. A couple more hours and we’d be on the island, hidden away from the greedy eyes of bounty hunters. In a couple more hours we could stop running, stop looking over our shoulders. We’d be able to start over, and we would be safe. It felt like a hundred pound weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I could have burst into song.

But for some reason he wouldn’t reveal, Kylo was still frowning.


	24. Death's Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks! So here we are in the third third of Forgotten Collateral. I'd separated this story into three parts: The City, The Road and The Island, which is the shortest. I'm headed out for a vacation in Australia, but trust that there only a handful of chapters left and I won't abandon you :) Thank you thank you thank you for your support on this story, my first Reylo attempt (hopefully not last), and super thank yous to everyone who has recommended this story to anyone else. I can't express how much it means to me.

REY

 

For a while after getting through the city, Kylo was back to normal. We stopped to eat and stretch and he talked a bit more about his family. He told me about his mother’s political activism, his father’s life in the military. I drank up every word and begged for more, unsure when he’d open up like that again.

The roads were better, the towns and suburbs more populous here as the midwest hadn’t been hit as hard as the coastal states. There were more working farms, more intact infrastructure as we drove north along the lake. As we made our way through Milwaukee he pulled out the phone to send a message to Hux, telling him where we were and when to expect us. He immediately called back and their conversation was clipped and quiet and when Kylo was done he threw the phone in my lap, muttering something under his breath. 

“Is it OK? Is everything OK?” I asked, placing the phone between us. 

“Yeah,” he said, not looking at me. “It's fine.” 

I didn’t say anything in response and he finally looked at me, his tone a bit softer as he squeezed my thigh, his fingers remaining dug into my skin for quite a while, revealing his tension.

“It’s fine,” he reiterated. “He’s just…never been one of my favorites.”

Sure enough, the closer we got to Door County peninsula, the quieter he got. I tried to tell jokes, offered to drive, asked him how he felt, even flirted with him, mentioning how nice it would be to finally settle down in one spot for a while, to be able to…be different together. Nothing budged him. He had fully reverted to the grumpy, gruff Kylo I’d been with the last couple weeks.

“What’s wrong with you?” I finally asked, peeling his hand from my leg. “We did it, Kylo. We got through Chicago, away from the Farm. That was the hard part.”

“We’re not in the clear,” he said, not looking at me. “These guys…” he said waving his hand at the road ahead. “These assholes that you’re so anxious to run to, they weren’t in prison for writing bad checks you know.”

“Neither were you. And yes, I know that. I was working with them, remember?” 

He growled a response. I was a little snippy about it, but I stood by my frustration. Just like always with every two steps forward we took a big step backward. Now we'd returned to him thinking I couldn’t hold my own, thinking I was some delicate flower he needed to shield, another asset in his bag of supplies. Hopefully now at least he wasn’t simply “protecting an investment”.

“They’re not trying to start trouble; they just want a place to live without people bothering them,” I said, a bit softer. “Besides, with their ankle monitors removed they know they have to watch themselves. It’s just an easy way to lay low. Isn’t that what you wanted? Didn’t you say you were tired of running?”

“Maybe you’re right, Schatzi,” he said, but I could still hear the tension in his voice. Finally he turned to look at me, his face surprisingly hard, eyes dark.. “But the only way you’re staying on that island is with me. I’m not leaving you alone there. Just understand that, OK?”

“OK,” I said, and he went quiet again.

The further north we went on the peninsula the more desolate the landscape became. It was as if our country was rotting from the edges. The waterline had risen over the last decade, washing away piers and houses. Tiny resort towns were completely abandoned, businesses boarded up, cars and boats left to decay in the mud. We made our way to Porte Des Morts park at the northern tip of the county where Hux had told us the boat would be waiting. Kylo parked the car almost half a mile away behind an old coffee shop. Near the water the breezes were crisp and refreshing under the bright blue sky and I took a few minutes just to breathe it in, to look out over the choppy, steel grey water. 

“What are we doing?” I asked, getting out of the car. 

“I’m not surrendering all my shit to the ‘commune’,” he said, going through the trunk. “Once Rose fixes my side, once I’m sure everything’s on the up and up, that they’re not going to just…blow my head off and live happily ever after, I’ll come back on my own and get our other supplies.” He pulled out his gun and a backpack stuffed with our clothes, slinging it over his shoulder. 

We walked back towards the park up a gravel driveway and Kylo squinted into the sun, smoking a cigarette. Raising the smoke to his lips I caught sight of the black monitor cuff still locked to his wrist. I hadn't thought about the ankle monitor in days. He’d turned it on back in Cleveland, but we’d come so far since then that it never even came to mind to ask him to remove it. And now that he was begrudgingly taking me to the island I knew better than to bring it up. It was something he needed, a reassurance that he wouldn’t believe coming from my lips. So instead I reached out and took his hand and squeezed. I could feel his whole body tense up, the pace of his walking stutter. Still he didn’t say anything, only looked down at our enmeshed fingers and looking back up at the water he finally squeezed back.

 

KYLO

 

We found the park easily enough although the picnic areas and gardens were overgrown, long left to decay. A wooden sign with yellow letters read “Porte des Morts Park - Welcome To Death’s Door - Fueled by Potawatomi legend and actual dangerous boating conditions, this strait leading to the Islands is traditionally known as Death’s Door due to the strong currents, winds and reefs that make navigation extraordinarily difficult…” 

I didn’t read the rest. 

Right now the water looked relatively calm for a huge body of water and I wanted to get through it as fast as possible. It had been literally decades since I’d driven a boat and I didn’t even know what sort we would be dealing with which only served to add to my anxiety about the whole situation. 

“Look!” She called out, letting go of my hand and rushing towards a tangle of overgrown shrubs with thick, broken tree limbs and rocks forming a little leanto. 

The sun flashed on the hull of a small fishing boat as Rey started pulling at the loose brush. It was small, but in good shape, a fifteen foot Starcraft with keys already in the ignition. The area must have been more desolate than I thought if they felt safe leaving it out there with a fucking engraved invitation to steal it. 

“Come on, before the wind picks up,” I said. “Let’s get it in the water.”

“Can you drive it?” She asked. “I’ve never…the last time I was in a boat I was a little kid.”

“I can drive it Schatzi. I told you, you’re safe with me.”

Once we were settled into the boat she dug around under the seats and found an envelope with REY written on it. 

“Its a map. There are two islands between here and there. We need to keep them on our right…head through to a little…like…bay thing and meet them at…Snake Island.”

“What is this, a fucking pirate movie?” I asked, starting the motor. The lake looked a lot bigger and more daunting once we were in the boat. And knowing it was called Death’s Door didn’t lower my blood pressure any. “Just tell me where to go and god dammit, sit down. There aren’t any lifejackets in here.”

It was cold, the waves splashing over the sides of the boat as we bounced on the surface. When we hit a particularly hard wave I could feel it in my ribs, my wound, deep inside.

“It’s going to be ok!” She called out over the noise of the engine, pressing her hand gently to my stomach, like she was transferring some sort of positive energy, giving me her life force or something. “We’re here now, everything’s going to be ok!”

I think she really believed it. 

 

REY

 

Feeling the water spray on my face was so cool and refreshing I could feel myself smiling as I looked out towards the horizon as the big island came into focus. Kylo slowed the engine and maneuvered through the little strait sending us into the bay where the water was calmer. Rounding the tiny Snake Island, I could see Hux with a telescope and Finn and someone else waiting, younger guy, younger than me even. 

Kylo saw them and started shaking his head as he slowed and finally cut the motor, letting the boat float up onto the marshy shore. I waved and started to stand but he grabbed my wrist and yanked me back down into the seat, hard. 

“Who’s that?” Kylo called out, and I saw him reaching for the gun in his waistband.

“Don’t,” I whispered under my breath.

“Another member of our merry band,” Hux said, flicking a cigarette butt into the lake. “Snoke’s little brother, Owen. He was up here before us getting stuff ready.”

“What happened to your hair?” Finn called out, but I didn’t feel like explaining. What did it matter?

Kylo was still holding tight to my arm but he took his hand off the gun as Hux wandered in closer. 

“Did you know he had a little brother?” I whispered again. For the first time something seemed off. _Stick with the devil you know._

“Yeah,” he answered, keeping his eyes trained on the little trio of men. He was still frowning, but he let go of my arm. 

“Come on,” Finn said. “There’s a rowboat to the mainland over here.”

Kylo looked at me and nodded before grabbing the backpack. I nodded back, but before leaving the boat I pulled down the cuff of my jeans to cover the monitor on my ankle. 

 

KYLO

 

We were crammed into that tiny tin boat like sardines, Hux and I staring each other down like angry dogs while Finn grilled Rey on her condition…did she need food, water, medical attention? She looked different, was that her choice? Had I tortured her in a damp murder basement for the last ten days? Oh they were all so worried about their precious baby Rey that they hadn’t bothered to try and locate for the last two weeks. 

“I’m fine,” she said, her eyes continuously cutting to Owen, who sat silently at the far front of the boat, looking out towards the island. “Kylo needs help. I tried to give him stitches but it didn’t work and we had to—“

“It’s fine,” I said. “Your little nurse girlfriend can give it a look when she has a minute but I’m sure it’s fine.” Still I nodded at her, appreciative that she’d thought to bring it up. I normally wasn’t one to ask for help or reveal my weak points, but now there was someone else looking out for me for the first time in a long time, and it felt good.

Even I was surprised to find no one at the dock when we got to the mainland, no  Rose, no Snoke, just a beat up old red pick up truck with boxes of tools and bags of supplies in the back. Owen tied up the rowboat and I looked around at the old Washington Island Welcome Center with faded shingles and a splintered, painted sign that was barely legible. Some old bikes and another couple of ancient cars sat in the parking lot of where the ferry used to come in. Weeds and young saplings grew up through the cracks in the asphalt; this island really had been left to die. 

“Where’s everyone else?” Rey asked, holding her hand up to her eyes and searching the horizon. 

“Back at camp,” Hux said over his shoulder. “You two and Owen in the back. It’s only a mile or two up the road.”

 

REY

 

The whole island was lush and overgrown, buzzing with insects and the sounds of birds. The gardens and yards of old houses and dead businesses ran rampant with late summer flowers and vegetables. There were berry bushes and a few apple trees, tall sunflowers and whole fields of goldenrod and asters. 

“I can’t believe all this green,” I said as we bounced along the old dirt road. “I’ve never seen so much green in my life, and the flowers…I didn’t think wildflowers even existed anymore.”

“It’s pretty rare,” Owen said, his voice deep but a bit timid. Kylo stared at him, his eyes glinting bronze in the sun. “Some of the last beekeepers in the country lived up here.  Had dozens of hives, millions of bees. When honey started skyrocketing they sold everything they could and went to Europe. You know, back when we could leave.”

“What about the bees?” I asked, squinting into the sun.  

“Dead I guess,” Owen said, shrugging. “Most of them at least. Just like all the others. This place isn’t magical or anything.”

Kylo snorted and rolled his eyes, scanning the skyline, watching for something that most certainly was not scenery. It was like seeing a dog with his fur standing on end; I could feel his unease like static in the air but he kept his mouth shut, one hand on my knee. Owen watched him stroking the inside of my leg with his thumb as if it were some sort of bizarre ritual. Before I could ask him what his problem was the truck came to a stop.

“You two, out,” Hux said. “Go in that cabin right there. We’ll come get you for dinner.” 

He pointed to a small log cabin, not much bigger than the fishing shack we’d found, but it had a little porch with two rocking chairs on it and a sign over the door reading “Foxtails”.

Kylo jumped out of the truck and walked around to the driver’s side where Hux was getting ready to pull away. He slammed his fist against the door to get his attention.

“Hey..hey hey no. What is this?” Kylo asked. “You said Rose was worried about Rey and she’s not even here to see her? Where’s Snoke? What the fuck is going on?”

“You’ll see them later. Right now you’re in quarantine,” Finn explained, leaning over towards Kylo. “It’s the rules we’ve put in place. Don’t get pissy.”

I got out and stood beside Kylo with the backpack.

“What’s going on?”

“Quarantine?” Kylo spat. “What the fuck is this? We don’t have the fucking measles, I’m not going to be locked up in a cabin jerking my…”

We both stopped talking when we felt Owen beside us, pointing a rifle at Kylo’s chest. 

“Owen,” I said quietly. “Don’t. There’s no need for this, we just wanted…”

“Get in the cabin,” Owen said. “We’ll talk to you both later once we make sure you’re OK to stay.”

I was surprised to see Kylo raise his hands in surrender, walking towards the shack, shaking his head, but I wasn’t going to give up that quickly.

“Wait! Kylo needs medical attention,” I said, calling in to Finn. “I promised him Rose would look at his wound. Please. Please tell her.”

Kylo was on the porch of the cabin and Finn leaned in closer to me. 

“Are you OK?” He asked. “If you need to come with us…”

“Finn, shut it,” Hux hissed.

“No,” I said firmly. “I’m not leaving him. I did what I could to help him but he needs to be checked out. We’ll stay in the cabin, but I want Rose here, now. And you can tell her that it’s the least she could do.”

 

KYLO

 

For a minute I was afraid she was going to go with them, climb into the seat, drive out of range while Owen shot me full of holes. Even now there were two lights on my cuff, a minute down the road the alarms would go off and I’d be in trouble. Instead she turned, her shoulders squared, head held high, something like a proud smile on her face. 

I’d wanted to bail on the entire endeavor the minute I saw someone I didn’t recognize, but for some reason I stood down. Maybe it was seeing the look of relief on her face, that smile that she’d been flashing more often over the last couple of days. She wasn’t just looking out for herself anymore. Something deep down still told me it was all going to go sideways, and fast, but I decided to be an optimist for once. I decided to be someone else entirely. For her. 

I opened the front door and went inside. It was obviously an old vacation rental cottage, decorated in typical “wilderness cozy” fashion. There was a small living room with brown plaid couches and a coffee table made from rough hewn logs. Dusty paint by number pictures of lakes and mountains hung in wooden frames. There was a small kitchenette and a bedroom with a king sized bed. For now they were using the place as storage obviously, judging by the boxes of tools and broken electronics scattered all over the place. There was an industrial sized bag of rice and two giant cans of evaporated milk on the kitchen counter while a few little plants were in old plastic containers, struggling to grow near the window. A propane lantern sat on the kitchen table but I didn’t bother to light it even though the light through the dirty old windows was weak and rapidly fading. I'd had enough sun for one day.

While Rey wandered the tiny rooms, running her hands over the supplies, reading out labels, moving boxes to make more space, I pulled off my shirt and flopped onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling where a dormant fan moved slowly in the breeze. The silence of the whole place was oppressive, made me think too much. I wondered if they really did have this whole damn island to themselves, if they actually could have a viable plan. Before long the fatigue from the drive and waning adrenaline seeped out of my bones and my eyelids started getting real heavy.

Right as I was drifting off she flopped down beside me, resting her head on my chest. 

“I told them to send Rose. Just to make sure you’re ok.”

I wrapped my arm around her to rub the back of her neck. It was warm. It was quiet. For the moment we were safe and alone. I’d given her exactly what she’d wanted. 

And we slept.

 


	25. Wanted

It was dark when Finn woke us by pounding on the door to inform us that we were most graciously invited to dinner at the lodge where we could finally catch up with the whole darn gang.

“Homemade pasta and fresh tomato sauce, even a bottle of wine to celebrate…” his voice sort of trailed off as he looked over at me.

“Celebrate what?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Y-your arrival, that’s all…”

He was nearly shaking, certainly more nervous without his friends to back him up. Before I could dig in a little further Rey got up from the bed and stood between us, touching his arm.

“Thank you,” she said. “We’ll be over in a few minutes. I just want to clean up a little, feeling grimy from the road.”

Finn nodded from the doorway and backed down the stairs while I waggled my fingers at him with my biggest, fakest smile. I think she sighed.

The two of us changed into fresh clothes and I sat on the bed to watch her brush her hair into some sort of style and pinch some color into her cheeks.

“Are you ready?” She asked.

With those words I was struck with a gut wrenching wave of nostalgia. It was that sort of pain of knowing there’s a time and a place you can never go back to: a time you should have treasured more when you had it. My heart ached with a crystal clear memory of watching my parents getting dressed for a night out, the air thick with the scent of her perfume and dad’s red wine. I could see him on the couch, checking the time on his phone - _Sweetheart are you ready_? 

My throat tightened as I pictured the details, flipping through them like photographs, those nights in a completely different world. It hurt knowing I’d never have that sort of peace again, that sort of -

“Kylo,”

Rey shook me from my memory with her hand on my knee. I liked how my name sounded in her voice. Pulling her down into a kiss I wrapped one hand around the back of her neck, my other arm tight around her waist. Her lips were warm and soft and she opened to me instantly, sweeping her tongue over mine as she straddled my thighs. These moments with her were another memory I would draw on later, feeling her change, knowing she warmed to my touch. I would never forget it.

“I don’t want to stay long,” I said, nipping at her jawbone, licking the shell of her ear. “I want you alone.”

She smiled and pulled away, running her fingertips over my cheek before making her way to the door.

 

REY

 

The “settlement”, as Finn called it, was on the grounds of an old summer resort, a place where people would come with their families and meet up with friends, an idyllic escape to the wilderness. The six cabins were all clustered around one large lodge, two stories high with a wide stone chimney. I took Kylo’s hand as we made the short walk across the grounds, but I could see that he didn’t want to talk, his jaw set tight, eyes dark. As we passed the little fenced in coop filled with clucking hens and fuzzy yellow chicks I resisted the urge to tell him that everything would be fine. He wouldn’t have believed me anyway.

The sun was setting and it was getting cooler in the evenings, so the fireplace was crackling with life, the whole dining/meeting room glowing golden when we walked in. The chatter around the long table in the center instantly stopped and everyone turned to look. There was Snoke, Hux, Finn, a couple of other guys who I’d seen around the halfway house before, one other woman, and Rose. 

“Rey! Oh my God your hair!” She jumped up from her seat beside Finn and ran over to me, throwing her arms around my neck. “I’m so happy you’re OK. Come in and eat! Come on!”

I hugged her back briefly - she was hard to resist, and Kylo looked at me out of the corner of his eye as he reluctantly let go of my hand. I caught a glimpse of the black band around his wrist and carefully adjusted the cuff of my jeans with my opposite foot to make sure the monitor was covered. I wasn’t in the mood for their questions.

“Thanks Rose, we’re hungry for sure,” I said, pulling away. 

I was still angry with her, and seeing her smiling just ripped the wound open again. I was angry at how quickly she’d left me, how quickly she went along with their plan, not knowing Kylo from a hole in the ground. And now here she was looking at me with some sort of sickening pity, as if I were dying right in front of her, and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from lashing out. 

“I need you to look at Kylo’s wound. He was…he was injured and I had to cauterize it…”

As I reached over to lift the hem of Kylo’s shirt Snoke called out,

“After we eat. Come on, we’re waiting.”

Kylo audibly snorted, his eyes roaming over the length of the table to the empty seats set for us…at opposite ends. Rose went back to her seat and I took his hand again, squeezing it. Arguing about a seating chart would be a waste of energy, but as we walked towards the table his brow furrowed anyway.

“Where’s Owen?” He asked, eyes focused on Snoke, “your baby brother.”

“Had to go into the mainland for supplies,” Snoke said, looking back down at his food, shoveling in a mouthful of pasta and talking while he chewed. “Running low on generator fuel and he got word about a couple piglets. He’ll be back tomorrow.” Finally he looked up, his mouth smeared with red sauce as he smiled. “Just sit down and eat, Hawk.”

The warm, homemade pasta, fresh vegetables and wine were like ambrosia, the best meal I’d had in weeks, but I was careful not to eat too much or too voraciously, lest they think that Kylo was starving me or keeping me locked in the trunk of his car or something. I actually made a point of catching his eye throughout the meal, gauging his pain level, his mood, his energy. He was chatting rather amiably with Finn and a dark, curly haired guy named Poe that they also knew from prison. Snoke sat at the center of the table and watched over everything but said very little, just shrugging or nodding along with whatever conversation he was drawn to. I caught him staring in my direction once or twice, felt his gaze on the back of my neck, but I only smiled and turned back towards Rose and the other woman who she introduced as Kaydel. She had been in the military but deserted three years earlier after the border scandal where an army battalion had fired on protesting civilians. The government, the military, the infrastructure of our country was the enemy now. We were all just trying to survive their reign.

“Well I think your hair looks awesome,” Kaydel said, smiling. “I didn’t know you before but it definitely suits you.”

“No,” Rose said, shaking her head. “She had the cutest brown hair, long and shiny. It was super healthy because she was fed so well when…” she stopped talking, biting her bottom lip and pushing the food around on her plate. "This is just weird…not that you’re weird. It just looks…different. It’s different,” she concluded with a shrug of low commitment.  

“It keeps me hidden,” I said simply, looking up to nod at Kylo. “It was his idea. To cut it, to bleach it. My picture has been all over the news and I don’t really want to be found so…”

When I looked up Kaydel was staring at her plate and Rose was smiling wide.

“Sure! Of course. I mean, it makes sense. Totally makes sense. I didn’t mean that you look weird. It’s just…”

“It’s fine Rose, thanks.”

I could feel him looking at me, staring. And when I looked back at Kylo, he gave me a tight, but definite smile.

 

KYLO

 

When we were finished eating Finn and Poe jumped up to clear plates and clean up while Rose called me over to a little makeshift first aid corner on the other side of the lodge. Were I not exhausted and eager to get back to the cabin I would have taken great pleasure in how genuinely terrified she looked to be within arms reach of me. She spoke so fast that it made my own heart race, her eyes unable to focus on mine for more than a second. When I took off my flannel and pulled my t-shirt over my head she actually jumped backwards then apologized profusely before sitting down to look at the healing burn.

Rey appeared at my side, back from a trip to the bathroom. Nothing would have thrilled me more than to pull her into a wet, sloppy kiss right in front of her little friend, but I knew I’d be read the riot act later. Instead I just nodded and leaned back on my palms, hissing when Rose leaned in to clean the wound with damp gauze. 

“How does it look?” Rey asked, biting her lip. I realized then how nervous she was, worried that she’d done me some kind of permanent damage, done something wrong. “Like I said, I tried stitches but they popped, and it was so red and hot…”

“It looks pretty good now, clean,” she said. “I would keep it covered for a while yet, maybe apply this anti-bacterial cream to the skin around it, but otherwise I think you did a good job. And you took antibiotics?”

“For a couple of days,” I said, pulling my shirt back on. “We didn’t have that many.”

“Well, we'll keep an eye on it for infection, but it’s a small wound, I think you’ll be ok.”

“Hear that, Schatzi?” I said, bending down to kiss the crown of Rey’s head. “She said you did a good job.”

I thought I heard Rose gasp, but maybe it was just wishful thinking. 

“Say…um..Kylo, could I get a few minutes with Rey alone? Just some girl time? We need to clear the air about some things. I promise it won’t be long.”

Rey looked up at me and nodded, her eyes flicking down to the cuff on my wrist. The monitor was in range of the cabin, a little more than thirty yards away if I stayed in the front room. Just to make it painfully clear to Rose where she stood I looked down at Rey and raised my eyebrow.

“Do you want me to leave you with her? You don’t have to stay,” I said. 

“It’s fine Kylo,” she said, “I won’t be long.” 

Rose sighed in relief and I reluctantly left for the cabin, watching Snoke and Hux working outside, chopping dead trees into firewood as I passed. What a peaceful little scene. Still, something didn’t seem right.

 

 

She came back after half an hour or so, a much shorter reunion than I’d predicted. I was sitting on the couch, trying to fiddle with an old CB unit that had been used for communications at the summer camp, figuring I could be of some use to someone, prove my worth somehow.

“How’d it go, mouse?” I asked. I’d watched for her out the window, but only saw silhouettes moving inside the lodge. They had stayed near the window and their conversation seemed calm.

“They all decided we can stay for a while,” she said, still standing across the room, chewing on her bottom lip. A hint of exasperation tinted her voice. “This is one of three empty cabins. They want to keep the broken radio equipment and some other supplies in here, but otherwise…it’s um…it’s…ours.”

I looked up at her then, at the confusion on her face, the way she said ‘ours’ like she was testing it out. She held the old brass key with a plastic number tag still gripped in her hand.

“So what’s wrong, Schatzi?  You look a little pale.” I got up and moved the CB radio to the kitchen table, cracking my neck once to each side before heading towards her. “Are they coming to get me? Burn me at the stake?”

That nagging voice piped up again; that angry, hateful voice that I’d heard all my life. It told me that was why she’d wanted to come to the island all along, wasn’t it? It was why she’d talked me out of dropping her at the Farm, nursed me back to health when I was in pain. She was just leading me down the primrose path, right? She was just using me as a driver, a bodyguard to get through Chicago. She just wanted someone on her side, someone who could protect her from the big bad wolf when she decided to make a break for it. For all I knew, Snoke had given her a gun and it was in her pocket of right now, her finger on the trigger just waiting to put a bullet in my head. But if that was her intention, she seemed awfully composed, even calm when I approached her. 

“Rose tried to apologize for leaving me _trapped_ with you but I told her to drop it,” she said, dragging her toe along the floor planks. “They asked me if I was OK,” she continued, “They asked if I needed help, for them to take…care…of anything. They offered to protect me from you.”

I nodded, crossing my arms over my chest, trying to keep my anger tamped down, and while I was at it, I tried to ignore this new sensation…fear. Not fear that they’d kill me; it was fear that they’d take her away from me. That someone else would touch her, take care of her, that someone else would fall…

“I told them no. I told them I wanted to stay with you. Actually, I told them I’d be afraid to stay with anyone else.”

She shouldered past me and made her way across the room without another word.  There was a new feeling in my chest, something I hadn’t felt in years; a lightness, a weight lifting. Like testing the ice on the lake in the first days of winter, I was daring…quietly daring to believe that she really wanted to stay with me. I followed her into the bedroom where she sat calmly unlacing her shoes and pulling her sweater over her head, tugging the tiny ponytail loose from her hair. She knew that I liked her hair down, even when it was this short.

“Sit down,” she said, reaching her hand out to take mine. “I want to show you.”

She stood and pushed me down, my back against the rustic hewn headboard. Then, standing at the edge of the bed she locked her eyes on mine and slowly stripped out of the rest of her clothes until she stood in front of me, completely naked, a little constellation of freckles across her nose and a smile on her face that I’d never seen; a knowing smile; a smile of finally being in control. 

Still, I was wary of her motives having seen it before. I’d seen women slithering their way up my body to get pills or food or money, spreading their legs to pay for their ammo, leaving before they even caught their breath. I was always up for an enthusiastic fuck, but they always played too hard at this seduction thinking their pussy would blow my mind and maybe they’d catch a break, a free ride, a fairy tale. But I’d been with Rey already. She’d already tried to sway me with her pussy. Her problem was that I already knew she loved the way I fucked her. I already knew that she craved me like I did her. And _my_ problem was that she already knew that I wasn’t just using her for ‘resources’ like I’d so crassly told her two weeks ago. I looked up at her; the curve of her hip, the little oval shape of her belly button, her smooth, gorgeous breasts. I could see how her stomach sunk in just below her ribcage and didn’t like it. I wanted her to eat more. Still, she was beautiful. Beautiful and offering herself up to me. There was no reason for her to do it…

Unless she really wanted to. 

She climbed onto the bed and straddled my hips, unbuttoning my flannel shirt as she leaned in to kiss me. 

“I do, Kylo. I really do want to stay with you.” 

Her tongue was warm and silky over mine as she pushed the shirt down over my shoulders, rolling her hips against my cock that strained, hot and hard against my jeans. 

“I want to know what it would be like to just…rest with you,” she breathed. “To live, just to be together.”

I tried to move, to pull her down to me, but my arms were pinned in my sleeves, snug at my sides, my hands wedged beneath my hips as she sat down across my thighs. My struggling just made her smile. She dragged her fingernails down my chest; her lips following close behind, pushing my tshirt up to my chest. With the tip of her tongue she traced the lines of my tattoos as she reached down to fumble with my belt. I bucked up against her, a small growl escaping my lips as she kissed her way down below my navel.

“I want to touch you,” I said, twisting and stretching, trying to work the sleeves of my shirt down my arms. “Let me touch you.”

She stopped and pushed my shoulders back to still me.

“Me first,” she said, her voice a buttery purr, quite different from how she’d ever spoken to me before, low and sultry. “I’m showing you what I want.”

I lifted my hips as she worked my jeans down my legs, her lips on my stomach, teeth pulling at the waistband of my briefs. When her warm breath streamed over the length of my cock I groaned, my head falling back against the bed. It was better that my hands were bound, arms trapped, because I would have choked her. I would have grabbed two fists full of her hair and pushed all the way down her throat, but she wouldn’t let me. Instead she crouched back, her hands on my chest, perfect ass high in the air, and she teased me with little flicks of her tongue, then long, flat strokes down my shaft, her naked breasts pushed against my thighs. 

“Fuck, Rey, you’re killing me.”

She giggled and it nearly drove me over the edge.  After all the things I’d done to her, all the times I’d hurt her, made her cry, made her angry, I realized that what I wanted most was to hear her happy, to make her laugh…well maybe second most.

“Stop teasing me, Schatzi and suck.”

She looked up at me with those wide, hazel eyes and then dove down, taking me deep in her mouth, her hot tongue smooth against the length of my erection, her fingers working my balls as she bobbed over me. But it wasn’t enough. No matter how deep she sunk, how hard she sucked, I needed to touch her.  So I bucked up hard against her mouth, making her squeal and jump back, her lips curled into a crooked, naughty smile. Her cheeks were flushed, hair a mess as she sat there,, buzzing with energy, crouched like a cat. This was what she wanted.  She was trying to drive me wild, to push me to my limit. She wanted a fight, and she wanted to lose it.

“You’re in trouble now, Schatzi,” I said, working my arms loose from the trap of my sleeves and kicking my pants from my ankles. 

I lunged forward, reaching for her waist, pulling her onto my lap. She held my face in her hands and kissed me as she lowered herself down, her wet, tight pussy surrounding me with her pulsing heat. Our joining made me groan as I pushed up to meet her downward thrust, locking my legs around her. Her hips rolled like a wave, riding me deep and slow as I buried my face between her breasts, sucking one hardened nipple between my teeth, making her hiss with sudden pleasure. I was sure that I’d come in a second, but it felt so good sliding against her, our naked skin pressed together at every point, her hands sunk into my hair as she whined, that I did everything to make it last.  It wasn’t until I felt her trembling, saw the telltale blush blooming across her chest that I changed the rhythm of my thrusts, flipping her onto her back, hammering against her open thighs. 

“I’m coming…oh God Kylo…don’t stop. Please.”  

Never. I would never stop. She knew that by now. She clung to me, her fingers digging into my back just like the first time I’d fucked her. But this time she wasn’t crying. This time she wasn’t hiding from me. This time I was watching and listening and giving her what she needed, what she wanted. Her body stiffened, her back arched off of the bed, a high-pitched whine taking over as she shuddered with orgasm.  Feeling her insides clench around me, pulling me deeper inside was enough to trigger my own climax and I filled her with wave after wave, my arms wrapped tight around her as we slowly came back down to earth. For the first time ever I found myself regretting my vasectomy, but I quickly shook it off and for a few moments it was perfect blissful silence. I stayed deep inside her as we rolled onto our sides, her head nuzzled against my chest.

“You’re getting awfully good at that, little mouse,” I whispered, my fingers tickling over the sweat slicked skin on her back. 

“Thanks.”

Laying on her side she ran her hand down my arm, tracing the tattoos with her fingertip, slow and steady. It was hypnotizing. Soothing. When she got to my wrist I turned my hand face up and she drew a finger down the lines of my palm.

“Hmmm,” she murmured. “It says you’re destined for a long life of peaceful happiness with your one true soulmate. You’ll live by water and have a…black dog and a…yellow sailboat.”

I pressed our palms together and brushed my fingertips against hers before lacing our hands. 

“I don’t think you know jack shit about palm reading, do you?” I murmured into her hair. 

She said nothing, only smiled and pulled herself closer, winding her arms and legs around me, unwilling to let us separate, tucking her head under my chin. Laying like that it struck me how tiny she was, how she was nearly hidden in my arms, completely surrounded and safe. Never in my life had I felt so needed. Needed and wanted.

“I’m cold,” she said, her lips against my neck. “Let’s get the blanket out from under us and get some sleep.”

I unwound myself from her limbs and pulled out of her, climbing from the bed to get a bottle of water and turn out the propane lantern in the living room, my heart light, my mind clear. Outside a bonfire was crackling and I could hear low voices, laughter. Maybe this really was it. Maybe this island was our home now and we were a family.  No more gun running, no more drug dealing…

“Kylo,” 

I turned to find her sitting on the edge of the bed, my black t-shirt hanging off of her, her hair a white tousled mess. If we stayed here she could let it go back to how it was, silky soft and caramel brown, tucked behind her ears. If we stayed I could watch it grow. She could lay in the sun and get that sunburn back on her cheeks. We could swim. We could swim together. She smiled and it was enough to get me hard all over again, but I knew she was tired.

“What, baby?”

“I love you.”


	26. Trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My goodness! I think we only have two or three chaps at the most left of this story! So I hope you're happy with the ending, and thank you for all of your support along the way. 
> 
> ****
> 
> Also, if y'all are or know someone who would be able to or would like to do a commission piece of a drawing of Kylo and Rey with their cuff and ankle monitor, I'd certainly love to know about it :)

_“What, baby?”_

_“I love you.”_

 

**REY –**

 

He stood there with a bottle of water, looking like the original…the actual prototype of man...with chiseled muscles and long, strong legs, his angled jaw covered by a dark scruff. I smiled knowing he was mine. All mine. It was a sort of dark, predatory pride, a dare for someone to challenge me for my spoils of war. And it was indeed a war I’d gone through. I deserved my reward.

He wasn’t perfect, not even close…but he loved me. I knew it. Unfortunately I also knew that he might never say it to me. In all my life I might never hear the words from his mouth, but I knew I meant more to him that he would ever admit.  Someday I would crack through that dark impenetrable mask he wore and then we’d be locked together for life.  

So there was no need for artificial locks anymore.

“What?” He said, although he’d heard me loud and clear.

I stood and walked to him, his shirt hanging to my knees. It smelled like Kylo: his hair, the side of his throat, cigarettes and some musky spice, and I wanted to wear it every night, sleep in it. He watched me hungrily as I crossed the room and I knew it would be a very long time before we got any kind of respite from each other. Taking his left hand in mine I ran my fingers over the black neoprene cuff with its four green lights across the front, now dormant.

“We don’t need this anymore, do we?” I asked, putting his hand over my heart. “We can take the cuffs off now, right?”

 

 

I didn’t think it was possible for a mood to change as quickly as his did.  In less than a second a shroud fell across his face, his eyes dark with anger, or maybe sadness…and his hand fell away from my chest with a rough push, as if he couldn’t get away from my touch fast enough.

I stood, dumbfounded as he fished a smoke out of the crumpled jeans on the floor, sucking down a deep drag, shaking his head, gripping the cigarette tight between his lips when he spoke again.

“Is that what this was all about?” His voice was different; his face was different. The room was like ice. The Hawk was back. “I gotta admit, you almost had me there, mouse.”

“Kylo, no! No. It isn’t, and you know that. Stop this. Stop letting that part of you take over.” I raced over to him again, grabbing his face with both hands, forcing him to look at me. “I’m telling you that I’m not going to run from you.  That’s what you said, right? You said that when you knew I wouldn’t run, you’d take it off. I told you I love you. I love you and I showed you. I showed you in that bed how I really felt.” 

“That’s why you did that?” He said, waving his hand toward the bed before rummaging around on the floor for his briefs. “A performance? A mercy fuck to placate me?”

“No,” I said carefully. “Don’t do this. Don’t go this way. Yes, OK, you’re right, I used to be scared of you. Yes, I hated you. We both know it. But things have changed, we’ve changed. When I’m with you I can see a future. A future where I don't have to be afraid, and neither do you. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I can feel it. You and I. Together.”

I waited for him to argue but he just stood there in complete silence, smoke trailing from his nose like a dragon. He stood perfectly still, only his heaving chest giving away his tension before letting out a little grunt of consideration to break the silence, his eyes searching mine.

“I know,” I continued, running my finger over the scar on his cheek. “I know you don’t trust anyone, you’re scared to trust anyone. And you have good reason for it. But you want to. You want to trust me. And you can. I’m telling you you can trust me. I’m not going to leave you. You don’t have to be the Hawk anymore around me. You can take off your mask. I promise you, I’m going to stay.”

He snarled, almost to himself, and crushed the spent cigarette into the floor beneath his bare foot. When he looked at me again he reached out to stroke my cheek, to rub his thumb over my bottom lip. 

“Rey,” he said on a sigh, his eyes softening, “my little mouse. You don’t —“

 

 

“REN, open up.”

Fists were pounding on the front door. It sounded like Snoke and maybe others. 

“Fuck off outta here,” Kylo called out, still staring at me, still running his hands all over me, his eyes locked on mine. The corner of his lips turned up in the slightest hint of a smile.

“We need you out here. Now. Come on,” Snoke yelled, his voice tight and tension filled. 

Kylo shook his head and stormed to the door, throwing it open to glare at the little group gathered on our front porch. I backed away into the bedroom to pull on a pair of jeans.

“What the hell could you possibly need from me,” Kylo sneered, standing there in his underwear. “I thought you had this little fully operational battle station running like a well oiled machine.” 

I hovered in the bedroom doorway as Hux and Snoke came in leaving Poe and Finn on the porch. The three men stood in a tight little triangle talking quietly and I watched the body language among them change. Hux, who had barged his way in with a puffed up chest quickly shrunk back as the big boys argued with dark looks and heavy sighs. The relationship between Snoke and Kylo was harder to gauge. It wasn’t friendly, but it wasn’t hostile either. Snoke spoke in steady, authoritative tones, reminding him of his allegiances, who he owed debts to. In fact, at one point Kylo looked to almost demure to whatever Snoke said until finally he sighed and threw his arms in the air in defeat. 

“Hey, where are you going?” I asked, inserting myself into the group. “What’s going on?”

Kylo immediately moved to stand beside me.

“We need your boy to help unload supplies and move some equipment,” Snoke said, sounding bored by the whole situation. “You two aren’t going to live here and just lay around all day,” his eyes flicked up and down, raking over my body and then back to Kylo’s nearly naked form. “Doing whatever it is you two do in your spare time.”

Kylo audibly growled in his face and the two men backed off, heading toward the door.

“Fine. Go get started and I’ll be right there,” Kylo said. “Meet you at the lodge.”

“Don’t make us wait, Hawk,” Hux snapped.

Kylo slammed the door in their face and turned back to me. 

“You stay here, lock the door,” he said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He headed for the bedroom and changed into his jeans and a red t-shirt, fresh cigarette tucked into the breast pocket. Before leaving he pulled me into his arms and dipped his head down to kiss me then slid down and switched off the power on my cuff. The key to remove it completely was buried in the bag somewhere, but from his place on the ground, kneeling in front of me, one hand on my leg, he looked up and said,

“I do trust you mouse. You’re the only one.” He stood up, kissed the crown of my head and ran a hand through his hair. “I won’t be long,” he said.

And then he was gone.

 

 

**KYLO -  
**

 

I could have just taken the cuff off my wrist, could have broken the monitor and set her free completely; but honestly, I didn’t want to. It was true what I said, I trusted her. I didn’t do a great job of showing it and she might not have believed me, but as much as I tried to ignore, to deny feelings I had for her, they’d crept into my blood like a virus. I couldn’t fight it and I didn’t want to. When we were alone, when we sat in the dark and talked about things that didn’t matter, trivial things, dreams and ideas, when she made me laugh, made me think…it reminded me of what it was like to have a family, to not be alone. 

But I was still me, and parts of me would never change. I was still a jealous, possessive, selfish prick. I still wanted to make sure that Rey and everyone else on that island knew she belonged to me, marking my territory like some primitive warlord. The monitor gave me a comfort. It was a guaranteed connection we had. Even if the lights weren’t on, just looking at the cuff or the neoprene on her ankle made me feel better, as if there were something keeping us linked. Maybe it was like how a wedding ring felt back when the world wasn’t such a fucked up place. 

 

 

The guys were having a smoke by the campfire, Hux holding an old school walkie talkie that occasionally scratched and popped with a few garbled voices. 

“Here comes the life of the party,” Snoke called out. “Need a smoke?”

“Got one,” I said, pulling the cigarette from my pocket. He seemed unusually cheerful, chatty, a quick turn around from the asshole mentally undressing Rey ten minutes ago. “What’s so important that you needed my help right before I was about to get laid?”

“We heard you fucking half an hour ago,” Hux snorted.

“And you can’t go twice in one night?” I asked, cupping my hand around my smoke to light it. “Poor fella. No wonder you can’t get the girl.”

“Watch your mouth you two faced prick,” Hux spat, turning to get up in my face. 

I gripped my cigarette tight between my lips, cracking my knuckles as I made a fist, but Snoke stepped between us.

“Ladies, can we not? Owen will be back with the truck soon,” he said, raising his eyebrow at Hux. “Poe and Finn are taking the piglets over to the barn and we’ll have a lot of stuff that can’t sit out overnight.”

 

It made sense.

 

But it still felt wrong.

 

  
**REY -**

 

For a few moments I watched from the living room as they walked to the pick up truck and unloaded a few boxes. The bonfire was roaring, lighting them up in orange as they marched between cabins and unpacked the truck. Before long, Kylo was laughing and yelling to the guys, a bit loosened up, balancing boxes on his broad shoulders. He was a giant compared to the others and I had to smile watching him stride easily back and forth. After staring for too long I sighed and stepped back, looking around the cabin for something to do, knowing I wouldn’t fall asleep until he was back inside. He’d dumped out the backpack while looking for clothes to change into and I saw what was a small box of 9mm ammo, now empty, overturned on the floor.  I went through some of the boxes of supplies that had been left in the cabin earlier and separated things out into organized piles, quickly becoming absorbed by an old laptop, booting it up and poking through ancient files. It had been a while since I did any “work”. I liked tinkering around, trying to fix things, figure out puzzles. 

 

“Rey?” Rose was outside, knocking on the door with a meek little rhythm.

“Hey,” I called out, getting up. “Hold on.”

I wasn’t really in the mood to rehash the tension between us, or listen to her justifications for doing what she did, but I was also lonely and bored so I opened the door. She was standing there with Owen and behind them was an old man in a black suit, his face ashen and drawn, a false, saccharine smile on his face. He was rich, I could see that, and completely out of place in this atmosphere. Already the hair on the back of my neck was prickling. Rose was frowning, chewing her cuticle and I’d known her long enough to be able to tell she was nervous. I felt something sinking in my stomach, a lead weight holding me in place, not letting them in. Kylo wouldn’t let them in.

“Let us in please,” Owen said, “we just want to talk.”

“Talk about what?” I asked, still not moving, my eyes drawn to the man in the back who did nothing but smile from the shadows. 

“We…want to make sure you’re OK, without Kylo around, so you can talk freely you know?” Rose said, her voice slow and small like talking to a child.

“I can speak freely whenever I want. He doesn’t stop me from talking. What in the world do you think he is?”

“A criminal,” Owen said. “An ex con.”

“Like Snoke? Like Hux, Finn, Poe?.” I asked. “Yeah, he is a criminal. And you were just fine leaving me all alone with him,” I said, turning on Rose. “And he hit me. He handcuffed me to his bed, he dragged me across country and held me hostage, doing whatever he wanted to me.” Rose’s eyes were wide, her lips a tight line as she nodded, her impressions of Kylo somehow confirmed. So I shut her down. “And I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him. I wouldn’t even be outside of New York were it not for him. I’d probably be dead, torn to pieces. He pulled me out of the clutches of a guy attacking me in an alley. He rescued me from the riots in New York and pulled me from the car of a couple of bounty hunters in Pennsylvania, got stabbed because of me. He got stabbed _for_ me.”

All the while the man stood calmly behind them saying nothing. If I’d learned anything from Kylo in our time together it was to find out what we were up against. Who. 

“I don’t recognize you from the halfway house,” I said to him finally, crossing my arms over my chest. “I don’t recognize you at all. Who are you?”

“No,” he finally said, stepping in front of both Owen and Rose, his hands in the pockets of his finely creased trousers. “I don’t suppose you do recognize me. But your hero would, your little partner in crime. I must say that it’s so nice to finally meet you,” he said, holding his hand out to shake. “You can call Mr. Palpatine.”

 


	27. What is Owed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know...suddenly this story doesn't seem as "futuristic dystopia" as it did a month ago, you know? Anyway...I had projected only two more chapters but this one got loooong so I split it into two and you must be angry with me. ;)

KYLO

 

Owen pulled up with the truck and nodded at Snoke before quickly disappearing into one of the other small cabins without a word.

“So you need my help but jagoff here gets to run and go play?” I asked, lifting boxes off of the truck bed. 

“He has other responsibilities,” Snoke said. “Don’t worry, boss. We all pull our weight.”

“I’m sure,” I said, casting a glance over my shoulder towards my own cabin. 

I could see her shadowy outline in the window, arms crossed over her chest, and I wondered if she was looking in my direction. I wanted to go back to her, something nagged at me to go get her and just leave. We didn't need all this. I took a step towards her but Snoke quickly distracted me, asking me to come see him in the lodge, and with one last glance over my shoulder, I followed.

 

“Listen, sit down,” he said, kicking back in an old upholstered chair in front of the fireplace, pouring himself a shot of tequila. “We’re trying to start a thing here you know, a new…settlement where we can just start over.  Can’t hold grudges, can’t have hard feelings. So if you could get that stick out of your ass, it would be great.”

I didn’t sit. Didn’t want to sit. Didn’t want to pull anything out of my ass. 

“The only one holding a grudge around here is Rey," I said, "who is suddenly realizing that you guys were all too happy to sell her out at the first possible opportunity to the first ex con you stumbled across. She doesn’t trust you. Any of you.”

“Yeah, and I wonder why that is?” Snoke said, nodding a greeting at someone over my shoulder. 

“Because I told her you’re an asshole. It’s doesn’t take a six week course. Look, what else did you need help with? I’m sort of antsy to get back to my girl if you get my drift.”

“Your _girl_ ,” Hux snorted from behind me, shouldering past to get the tequila. Why were we all drinking and bickering in the lodge if there was so much shit to be done? “Look at the happy couple! I’m sure she genuinely loves you for your winning personality.”

“It’s the dick that really won her over, Red,” I snapped, “not that it’s any of your business.”

“Awww, did I hurt your feelings?” Hux purred, pouting dramatically. From the corner of my eye I saw Snoke stand up. “Look at you, whipped into domestic life by the first bird to spread her legs for you.”

“Guys…”

“Look at me, asshole,” I said, stepping closer. “You honestly think she’s the first?”

“She really must be something, Maybe I should take her for a ride myself?”

“Touch her once,” I growled, “I fucking dare you.”

“ENOUGH,” Snoke said, standing between us. “We do have more work to do, Hawk. I just wanted to take you aside for a minute and assure you there were no hard feelings. This all started out a bit awkwardly and I guess I can’t speak for Armie, but the rest of us are happy you’re here.”

Outside a door slammed and I nearly jumped out of my skin, surprising even myself with how high strung I was at the moment. 

“Yeah, well, thanks. Really happy to be here,” I said, finally reaching for the tequila myself and throwing back a shot that burned down my throat.

I probably shouldn’t have been lifting boxes, walking, even standing upright, and the wound in my side was flaring to life. I wanted something to numb it, to heal it. I wanted to feel better. The tequila would do for now.

But I wanted to be with Rey. 

  
REY

 

“Mr…” 

I couldn’t even get the name out. I hated him. Hated him instantly. Hated him more than Hux or Snoke or anyone else in the story of Kylo’s life. Mr. Palpatine had destroyed him, turned him into a criminal by promising him security, safety, a life of luxury; promising him things that didn't exist anymore.

“Surely he’s told you about me,” the pale, gaunt man said, stepping further into the room. “About what I did for him.”

“Did _for_ him?” I said, stumbling back against the kitchen table, my eyes flicking back and forth between Owen and Rose. She looked afraid and apologetic, chewing on her fingernails. Owen looked bored. “Turned him into a criminal? Sent him to prison?”

“He sent himself to prison,” he sneered. “A good enforcer doesn’t get caught, little mouse.”

I cringed at his use of the term. In an instant it was ruined for me knowing that Kylo had learned it from him. I never wanted to hear it again. I wasn’t a little mouse. I wouldn’t be trapped.  

“How did you find us?” I asked. “How did you even…”

“What did you think brought Snoke and Kylo and Hux together when they were languishing in jail? Old time religion? They all worked for me, sweetie, and once you work for me, you never retire.” 

He ran a hand over the back of the old camp couch and rubbed the dust between two bony slim fingers. As he spoke Owen had moved to block the door while Rose was still chewing her nails. She was holding her buzzing walkie talkie in the other hand. I focused back on Palpatine. 

“We’re always looking for ways to make money in this crazy, crumbling world. Always looking for the advantage. But I must say, he’s done a good job at disguising you…the hair…the tan…” he stepped in closer still and actually touched my face with his cold fingers, dry and cold like a corpse, turning my face toward the light. “I’m betting he changed you in other ways too, right? Looks like he taught you a lesson or two,” he said with a crooked grin.

I slapped his hand away and pushed back, walking behind the table.

“Get out,” I said, pointing at the door. “He’ll kill you if he sees you here. You have no power over him now.”

“Don’t I, girl? Your better half all but stole from me after his release, left me high and dry and went into business for himself, and after all I’d done. I would say he most definitely owes me. Owes me something in the neighborhood of….fifty thousand dollars. And so, unfortunately little mouse, your coming together will be your undoing.”

My lungs emptied, my heart in my throat. I looked to Rose who was nearly sobbing, clutching the walkie talkie.

“I’m sorry, Rey.  I’m sorry…Finn promised me…”

“Promised you what?” I said, “a cut of the bounty? What could he possibly promise you that would make it ok to sell me out?” 

Owen stepped forward, holding a pair of handcuffs and I laughed, backing away until there was no more room to move. It was Palpatine’s turn to look bored. 

“This isn’t going to work,” I said, my voice shaking. “As soon as he sees you, as soon as he sees that I’m gone, sees you parading me out the door, he’ll fucking kill you.”

“Not if he’s on the other side of the property he won’t,” Owen said, laughing as he clasped the cuffs around my wrists. “Go ahead and throw your little fit. He can't see you from a hundred yards away.”

“No,” I said, biting my cheek to force a defeated pout, “he can’t.”

 

  
KYLO

 

“Tell me again why we’re chopping wood in the middle of the night,” I said, swinging the old, dull axe over my head.

To be fair, it felt good to break up the fallen logs, to hear the snap and split of the yellow wood as the wedge went through, to use my muscles, no matter how much it hurt. I groaned with each swing but didn’t dare stop. Old habits die hard and showing weakness around these guys was the last thing I wanted to do. Besides, working meant I wouldn’t have to talk.

“Killing two birds with one stone,” Poe said, swinging his own axe. “Finn built a couple of fish traps we’re going to try and set. Ever eat a burbot?  Call ‘em lawyers up here for some reason. Fucking delicious fish…ugly as fuck but fry ‘em up and I’m in heaven. Personally, I’d rather go fishing with a line and pole but apparently Finn has a plan.” 

“And we all had to be here for it?” I asked, stacking up a few split logs and setting them in the wheelbarrow. “And why didn’t we just bring the truck?”

No one answered me and when I looked up, Snoke and Hux were exchanging glances I couldn’t translate.

“Trying to conserve what little gas we have, Hawk,” Hux said, his voice unusually calm. “Maybe quit questioning every move? Don’t worry, you’ll get back to your little love nest in no time.”

Over across the clearing Finn’s walkie buzzed and beeped and I heard a muffled voice. Snoke and Hux both turned as it beeped again and Rose said,

“Hey Finn…” her voice crackling and weak, “…ok….secured….wants…..leave when you…back…”

Finn just stared. Snoke pulled his cigarette out of his mouth and flicked it off into the trees. 

“You gonna answer her big boy?” He asked, raising an eyebrow at Finn.

“Y-yeah…yeah…it’s nothing…she was just…” he lifted the walkie to his mouth like it was a hissing cobra. “Uh…copy…uh…Roger that….Rose. Over.”

“Copy Roger that!” Hux said and we all burst out laughing. “C’mon, this is enough for the weekend. Let’s head back.”

And then I saw it, the little green glow.

 

REY

 

I twisted and fought with Owen while Palpatine instructed Rose on what to tell the crew. They were going to take me to the truck and then we’d take “the other boat” back to the mainland.  Palpatine was a soulless weasel and so of course he had connections at The Farm. I’d be back in the hospital by morning.

“This isn’t going to work,” I growled at Owen, bucking and pulling so he couldn’t get a hold of me. 

All I needed was a minute. Ten seconds.  I just needed my hands. 

“Shut up,” he said, raising his hand as if to hit me. “It’s over. Don’t make it harder on yourself.”

“How could you do this?” I screamed at Rose who visibly flinched as she cowered against the door, Palpatine keeping a close eye on her.

I could see the conflict in her eyes. She wanted to help. She didn’t want this, but she was outnumbered in this little “Utopia” and her voice had been lost. She was just as much a prisoner as I was. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry Rey, I didn’t know they were…”

“They’re going to kill me there. You know that, right? They’re going to cut me open…” 

The walkie crackled and beeped and Finn’s voice came through. 

“On our way…get to the truck before….” And then static.

“Before he sees what you’re doing,” I finished. “When he sees that I’m gone I'm sure he’s going to rip…”

Owen turned and backhanded me with the full force of his arm. Rose screamed in surprise and I saw stars, tasting blood in my mouth where my teeth had crashed together. But more importantly, he’d hit me hard enough that I fell to my knees, out of his grip.

“Don’t hit her again,” Palpatine hissed. “I don’t want them asking questions about her condition when we get there.”

I stayed on the floor as he admonished Owen, pretending to catch my breath, when in reality I was feeling around for the switch on my monitor. There was no way we were within thirty yards of each other. I made sure to sniff and shudder as if I were still crying until I could find the tiny black switch and just as Palpatine said,

“Get her back up,”

I turned it on.

 

  
KYLO

 

 

All four lights lit up at once and the forest was filled with the piercing metallic beep of the alarm. She’d turned it back on.

“What the fuck is that?” Poe asked, covering his ears. 

Hux and Snoke exchanged glances and the walkie talkie in Finn’s hand buzzed to life, squealing with feedback. 

“What did you do?” I asked, whirling around on Snoke. 

When he wouldn’t answer right away I dropped the axe I was carrying and started running. We were nearly a quarter mile from the cabin. My side burned with pain, my heart in my mouth as I was consumed with this new horrifying concept of fear.  She’d given me fear.  A kind of helpless, hopeless fear that I’d never felt before. Fear that she would be hurt, that she would leave me, that she would be taken. I felt it all the time now and I hated it. 

“REY!” I yelled through the trees, the island blue with moonlight, muggy with late summer heat. 

“KYLO!”

Her voice was small and distant, but I could hear her. I was close enough to hear her and so I kept running. As I burst out from the edge of the forest the beeping stopped as she got back in range.  Across the clearing I could see the empty pick up truck in front of our cabin. The front door swung wide as Owen walked down the porch stairs with Rey, limp, slung over his shoulder, and behind him…

No.

I hadn’t seen Palpatine since I was arrested. I may as well have died that day for all he cared. Never a message, no bail, no representation. I went into prison and there was never a visit, a promise to help me when I got out, nothing. Once I was caught he hung me out to dry and so when I got out, I abandoned him. Of course he got messages to me then. He told me I’d regret crossing him, taking his business, refusing his generous offer to enslave me again, put me in danger again. In prison I learned the tattoo code and got the stars on my knees shortly after. I would bow before no man, not again. Working for Palpatine had lost me everything, things I could never recover. 

He wasn’t going to take her. 

“Kylo STOP,” I heard Hux yelling behind me but didn’t slow for a minute. 

“LET HER GO!” I yelled to Owen who suddenly looked up, catching my eye. If I hadn’t been so desperate to get to her I would have laughed at how quickly his face changed, how wide his eyes went. “Don’t take another step asshole,” I said, pulling the gun from the waistband of my jeans. 

Rey didn’t move. She didn’t yell.

“Rey, I’m here. It’s OK,” I said, only then noticing that the hand holding the gun was shaking. 

Palpatine laughed.  It was icy and thin, a breathy, cruel laugh and I turned and pointed the gun at him instead of Owen. Rose came out of the cabin, her face ashen as she looked for Finn somewhere in the group.

Still Rey didn’t move.

“What did you do to her?” I yelled. No one answered me. Rose opened her mouth and closed it again. I looked over my shoulder at Finn shaking his head at her. “Rose,” I said, lowering my voice a bit. “What did they do?”

“He hit her,” she said, her eyes darting around to check in with everyone. 

Finally I heard her, Rey was alive…a groan of pain rumbling out of her. I wanted to kill all of them. I would take on every last one.

“Let her go, now,” I said, pointing back to Owen. “I mean it. Put her down. I’ve known you for about two hours. I have no problem blowing your head off.”

“Kylo don’t,” Rose said, her voice shaking. “You know she wouldn’t want that.”

“Kylo, man, there’s other pussy out there,” Hux said, as if it would soothe me, as if I would listen to a word out of his mouth. 

Instead I spun on my heel and shot him in the leg, sending him to the ground howling. Poe and Snoke ran to him to check the wound while I turned back to Palpatine. But by then he’d evened the playing field, his own gun pointed at me. Rey was starting to squirm on Owen’s shoulder.

“Rey, I’m here,” I said, knowing she couldn’t see me.

“Don’t be a fool, Ren,” Palpatine said, his voice as calm and cold as ever. “Do you really think you deserve a girl like her?  So pretty, so clean? So pure?”

“Shut up,” was the only thing I could say.

Of course I didn’t. Of course I wouldn’t never deserve a girl like Rey. I’d failed at everything I’d ever tried to do for her. Most importantly, I’d failed at keeping her safe. After begging her to trust me, promising her that nothing would happen, she was in the arms of the enemy, on the way to her worst nightmare. I didn’t deserve her for a second, but I would do whatever I could to earn her if only for one more day. 

“K…kylo?” 

I heard her, so small and broken, searching with her voice. And I knew then that even though I’d vowed never to do it, all I had left was to beg. I lowered my gun.

“Please,” I said, ashamed at how my voice cracked in the darkness, how everyone was there to witness me at my lowest. “Don’t take her. You don’t need her. You have more fucking money than God.  But if money is what you need, I’ll get it for you. I’ll work for you again, whatever you need. I’ll scrub the fucking toilets.”

Rey was struggling in Owen’s grip now, twisting and bucking until she was on her feet. She tried to run to me but he grabbed her by both arms to hold her back. She was handcuffed.

“Kylo don’t…” she said. “Don’t do this. Don’t make this worse.”

Owen snorted out a laugh but I was too busy staring at her to care. Her bottom lip was swollen, blood at the corner of her mouth. The bruise on her face that had just healed was blooming again where she’d been hit. I ground my teeth together and turned back to Palpatine who was still aiming at my head. Rose stepped closer.

“Owen, maybe we should…”

“Rose…shhh..” Snoke hissed. “Don’t get fucking involved.”

An argument started behind me, Finn and Snoke yelling about who had control over Rose who was looking more terrified with every passing moment. Owen was swearing at Rose who was pleading to let Rey go, and all I did was stare at Palpatine.

“I need her,” I admitted quietly. “You don’t.”

It happened so quickly that I remember it like those old film strips we used to watch in school…single frames flickering by. 

“You’re right,” he said, turning to point the gun at Rey, “I don’t.”

He fired and I screamed, diving forward, knowing there was no way I could cover the twenty feet between us before a bullet could. Owen fell away and I hit the ground, my face dragging through the mud. 

 

REY

  
Kylo had come back for me. As soon as I heard his voice I’d felt a rush of relief. He wouldn’t let them take me. He wouldn’t let them hurt me. He’d promised me that. And I trusted him. He was going to do just what I suspected and rip them all limb from limb.

But something happened when he saw Palpatine. Even when he was holding a gun on him, I could see how he shook, how his shoulders inched up towards his ears. It was as if he became smaller. When he called out for me his voice cracked and I knew it wasn’t out of worry for me. I was groggy, and in pain and still dizzy from being knocked out, but I heard Palpatine tell him that he’d never deserve me, and I knew, deep down, that Kylo believed him.

Then he was begging like a child, his lip trembling in the dark as he offered himself up as a sacrifice. I wouldn’t let him be taken down again. Not when he’d given me so much.

And it all went haywire after that, nothing but sounds…and pain, flashes of memory.

I heard three screams and two shots and then felt a searing, throbbing pain in my shoulder. I was pinned to the ground by a heavy weight, my nose buried in the wet earth. It smelled so clean. So safe. 

And then it all went dark.


	28. Through and Through

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The End. :)
> 
> The epilogue should be up in a couple of days, but the official story ends here. You guys have been so incredibly supportive, inspiring, helpful and just all around swell. You're all a bunch of Schatzis in my eyes. ::kisses:: Thanks for following along for my first Reylo.

KYLO

 

Just fragments when I looked up. Different senses coming back online.

The cold, damp ground smelling like clean cut grass, but then cutting through was the sharp, distinctive burnt smell of gunfire. The smell of blood and piss.

Screaming from all sides but my ears were still ringing from the gunshots.

Two.

Rey face down on the ground, Rose crying on top of her.

“Kylo! Help!” 

When I lifted my head and shook it clear I could see pieces of what happened. Not five feet away from me Palpatine lay dead, a bullet placed neatly between his eyes.  Beside him Owen was scrambling to his feet, his left side covered in blood, a gun in his shaking hand. Still I couldn’t put together exactly what had gone down.

“Don’t fucking move,” Owen said, but his voice was as unsteady as his grip.

Rey groaned in pain and I grabbed my own gun from the mud before crawling closer. A blood stain bloomed on the back of her t-shirt, at the top of her right shoulder. I pushed Rose away and rolled Rey onto her back. She wailed in pain, her eyes flying open. When she fell her head had hit a rock and was cut just at her hairline.

“I saw him aiming for her...” Rose said, “I tried to push her away in time but her...”

Behind me I heard Owen's gun click and everyone started talking at once.

“I said to leave her be,” he said, a bit more confident now, thinking he owned the situation.

“Where are the keys to the cuffs?” I said to no one in particular.

“Owen…” Rose spoke up. “Owen has them.”

“Rose!”

Finally, it was Finn speaking up. I looked over my shoulder at him still holding his arm outstretched, gun aimed where Palpatine once stood. He’d done it to protect Rose.

“We’re taking her to Chicago. I don’t need this asshole, I know where the Farm is,” Owen said. “If you don’t step away-“

I raised my arm and pointed at his head. My aim had never been as true.

“Kylo don’t,” Rey said. “You don’t have to. Please…”

I assessed everyone’s position and finally stood, pulling Rose in front of me. She was smart not to scream, not to struggle. I had no desire to hurt her. I needed her. 

“We’re going into the cabin,” I called out. “Rose is coming with and we’re going to take care of Rey.” I held Rose’s arm tighter, pulling her against my chest and I could feel that she was holding her breath, terrified. “One move towards us and she goes down, you understand Finny?”

“I don’t give a fuck about Rose,” Owen said. “We only need Rey.”

Another gunshot split the air and Owen went down right next to his dead boss, a bullet in his elbow. Finn stepped closer, taking aim to shoot again, but when he got close enough Owen put his hands up in surrender.

“Give her the keys,” he said, nodding in Rose’s direction. “Now.”

With a shaking, bloody hand, Owen pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and threw at Rose's feet, swearing under his breath. 

“Go,” Finn said to me, finally lowering his gun, “but if Rose isn’t back out here in an hour I’m coming in.”

I nodded in agreement and silent thanks. Snoke was helping Hux over to one of the cabins; they knew it was over.

“Bring her to the lodge, I have more supplies there,” Rose said, throwing me the keys.

 

  
REY

 

I fell to the ground and the pain was hot, Ringing through my head, deep and dull, radiating from my shoulder throughout my whole body My cuffed hands were trapped beneath me, the metal cutting into my stomach. I didn’t have the strength to get up. I was too afraid to move, even when Kylo was calling me. Even when I heard another gunshot.

I smelled Rose’s shampoo, felt her weight holding me down. And then I was on my back, dizzy at the sudden movement of rolling over. Above me the thin, fingerlike branches of the tallest trees looked like they were reaching out for the first few stars appearing in the darkening sky. It’s the first thing I remember with certain clarity…the deep purple blue of the sky, the black branches. A breeze blew across my face. I’ll never forget it. Then I blinked and Kylo was crouching over me, working the key into the handcuff lock. 

“You heard the alarm,” was all I could think of to say…the only words that came into my head. 

The cuffs were gone and my arms fell limp to my sides. I screamed in pain, tears instantly blurring my vision and Kylo pulled me up, holding me against his chest.

“I did baby, I heard it,” he said, running his warm hand over my cheek, brushing my hair back. “You’re OK now, you’re OK.”  

He pulled away and looked at me, my face in his hands, searching I suppose, for more injuries. Something warm dripped down my temple to my cheek and he swiped it away with his thumb.

“Come on, Schatzi,” he said, pulling me up and into his arms. “Rose is gonna fix you up. Everything’s going to be fine. You’re going to be ok.”

“I can walk,” I said as he lifted me off the ground. I was tired, a bit nauseated even. But he needed me to be strong. So if I focused on anything except the pain I could do it, but he wouldn't let me.

“I want to carry you,” was his only reply. 

 

KYLO

 

 

She hissed and swore as I lifted her, burying her head in my chest. Rose had run ahead and was holding the door to the lodge open. 

“Your heart is racing,” Rey muttered, not looking up.

She was trembling, her voice gravely and quiet. Yes, my heart was racing. I could smell the iron of her blood, her sweat and adrenaline. When I held her tighter she whimpered.

“It’s ok,” I said, only a few steps from the open door. “It’s going to be ok. I promise, mouse, it’ll be ok.”

“Don’t,” she said, suddenly stiffening in my arms. “Not that.”

I let her down onto the cot and she sat, her face ghostly pale, wavering as she sat. Her eyelids fluttered as she looked at me, the rims red with tears as she tried to smile. In the better light of the lodge I could see where Owen had hit her, the dried blood in the corners of her mouth, the red bruise swelling around her eye. I ground my teeth and stayed quiet while Rose gave instructions.

“Clean up her face,” Rose said, handing me a wet cloth. “I’ll get her shirt off.”

Rey closed her eyes and I wiped the dirt and blood away before moving up to her hairline where a little jagged wound had darkened with clotted blood and some bits of mud and gravel that I cleared out. Rey dug her fingers into my forearm as I worked. 

“It’s fine,” Rose said, cutting through the back of her t-shirt with some old scissors. “Head wounds always bleed like crazy but that one’s not even big enough for stitches. She’ll have a headache for sure, a goose egg in the morning, but a bandage and good cleaning is all that needs.”

“Good,” I said, smiling at her. “You hear that, it’s OK.”

“I know,” Rey said, smiling at me. “I’m not worried. I just want this to be done.” 

I stepped back then and let Rose take over, cleaning the gunshot wound in her shoulder. It was through and through, just below her collarbone, easily cleaned and packed with gauze. Rey sat in silence, focused on me, tears streaming down her face, but she refused to cry out. I watched as she grew more and more pale, sweat dotting her forehead, her lips in a tight line. If she was trying to be strong for me, because I’d called her a fragile little girl, because I'd told her she wouldn't last a minute in the real world, well I would never forgive myself. Rose moved to stand in front of her, dabbing at the gash in her forehead with a piece of wet cloth that finally made her yelp before biting her lip. I couldn’t watch. Instead I dug through the supply boxes and found two more bottles of antibiotics and some gauze and tape, packed them into an old tool box. While I was at it I dug around for a few other things, batteries, a good knife, vitamins and painkillers. 

“Just keep it clean. There might be some swelling since it’s so near the surface, but it’s a…it’s…she’ll be ok.”

“Give her something for the pain,” I snapped at Rose, “She’s in pain.”

“Kylo…” Rey said quietly, shaking her head. “It’s OK…”

I rifled through the box I’d just packed and found a couple of Norco, handing them to Rey with half a cup of old coffee that was sitting on a nearby table. Rose wrapped an ace bandage around her shoulder to hold her arm tight to her side as I pulled a few more supplies together. We were leaving. We were leaving that night, and I wanted her to be comfortable. 

“I…I need to lay down,” she said, flopping backwards onto the cot, “I feel dizzy and tired.”

Rose was already walking towards the door.

“Hey! Hey!” I stopped her. “Is it ok if she lays down? What if she has a concussion? Should I keep her awake? What should I do? Can I…”

“She’s fine, Kylo,” Rose said, touching my arm. “I don’t think it’s a concussion and there’s no danger of internal bleeding. If she wants to sleep, she can…just…keep an eye on her. You can take care of her yourself. I need to go be with Finn.”

“Thanks,” I said, watching Rey turn gingerly onto her side, her knees drawn to her chest. “I…I don’t…know how to..just...thanks for knocking her down.”

She smiled and nodded. 

“I know you want to rescue her, Kylo. I know you want to leave with her. And you will. Just…just give her a little bit of time to recover. Finn and I will make sure no one stands in your way.”

“Why?” I asked, surprised at her sudden change of heart, her willingness to do anything for a monster like me.

“At first I thought you were just using her,” she said, watching Rey over my shoulder. “She’s alone, you know. I’m sure she’s told you how her family…” she shook her head in disbelief. “When you offered yourself to Palpatine, you were ready to give up everything to keep her out of that place. You don’t see a lot of people doing that in the world today. Look at me, I was too scared to stand up to any of them. It was just...self preservation. But seeing you do it…I can see that you care about her. A lot.”

“I do,” I said, realizing only then that I’d never actually told her how much.

Rose turned for the door and I let her go, locking up the lodge behind her and moving to sit next to Rey.

“You asleep?” I asked, pulling up a chair to sit next to the cot. She was faced away from me, turned on her side. 

“No,” she said, “just tired. Will you lay with me?”

“I don’t think I’ll fit, Schatzi, but I’m right here.”

She was quiet then, and as I rubbed her back I felt her breathing deepen and slow as she fell closer to sleep. I couldn’t wait another minute.

“Rey, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry for hitting you, for…threatening you. I’m sorry for handcuffing you to my bed, for holding you hostage, putting you on a leash like an animal. I’m sorry for the names I called you and…I’m…” my throat was tight with grief, embarrassment, regret. “I’m sorry for making you do things you didn’t want to do, things you weren’t ready for…pushing you, forcing…”

She sat up then, turning to face me with tired eyes and a kind smile.

“Thank you Kylo,” she said, reaching out to touch my cheek. “I’m OK. I promise. No damage done.”

I nearly laughed as she said it, sitting there with a bandage on her head and a sling on her arm, but instead I leaned in and kissed her and I could feel her smile as our lips met. I pulled back, my hand massaging the back of her neck, supporting her tired body. 

“Rey, I couldn’t tell you earlier,” I said. “And I was so scared when I saw that he had you, that he’d found me, found you and wanted to take you away from me…Rey I’ve never been so scared…”

“It’s OK Kylo, it’s over now.”

“I know. I know.” I took a breath and exhaled the words. Once they were out I couldn’t ever take them back. Once I said them she would know. “Rey, I love you.”

Her smile was so bright, so radiant and wide that I was nearly brought to tears. I couldn’t help but smile in return, nearly laughing with relief...with contentment.

“I love you too, Kylo," she said, stroking my cheek. "I’m going to rest for a little bit,” she said, yawning. “But then I want to go home.”

She lay back down, turning away from me to protect her injured shoulder.

“Home?” I said, already trying to make a plan in my head. “Where’s home?”

She didn’t answer for a long time, and then after a deep, sleepy sigh she mumbled, half asleep…

“Wherever we go from here.”

 


	29. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Big kisses and hugs to everyone and their amazing comments and support. See you in the next one. Please visit The Last Sacrifice, which is my other WIP and stay tuned for The Shepherd, coming up soon. 
> 
> And if you know anyone or if YOU are interested in doing a commissioned work of Kylo and Rey in their monitor anklet and cuff, preferably during their "on the road" times...please let me know :)

  
**FOUR MONTHS LATER**

* * *

BEN

 

It snowed in the night, the first sticking snow of the season and I woke up to find her at the window, looking out at the frost dusted trees, down towards the steely water of Seneca Lake. It was barely a dusting and would melt when the sun came up but she was grinning like a kid at Christmas. Her hair was growing out, almost touching her shoulders with a few dark inches at the roots and when we slept she kept it in a tight little pony tail that spiked out like a hedgehog at the nape of her neck. There was a scar on her shoulder but she told me she liked it.

_“Can’t call me Goody Two Shoes anymore, I have a gunshot wound,”_ she’d said, running her fingers over the raised, pink skin where the bullet had gone through.

I got out of bed and shuffled over to the little makeshift kitchen we’d created in the corner of the one room cabin.

 

*****

On our way back to New York, I’d stopped back in Cleveland and went back to the flats to find Boba. I sold him most of the more dangerous contraband I’d collected: the stash I’d originally left the city with; a couple of guns, boxes of ammo, phones, and some of the drugs I’d taken from Snoke’s island. 

“I remember you,” Fett had said, counting out fifty dollar bills while I packed up some of the things we’d traded for. “What happened to your girl?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

Immediately my hackles had gone up. Until we got somewhere safe, until we could settle in and secure ourselves we had to be on high alert. Even now Rey was hidden on the floor of the backseat of the car. The more people who saw me traveling alone, the more people would believe she was gone…captured or dead. 

“Girls come and go, my man,” I said, draining the shot of whiskey he’d offered me to close our deal. “I’m traveling solo now.”

And that’s when I came up with the names.

 

There was a small community around Seneca Lake, not unlike the people on Presque Isle. There were houses on acres of land with thriving gardens and farmsteads selling their wares. There were horses and sheep. Right off the main drag there were a couple of little diners not unlike the one we’d had breakfast at in Pennsylvania, a junkyard filled with old appliances, generators, supplies, furniture…even a general store, one of the few I’d seen over the past few months. It was one of those pockets of normalcy that still existed away from the bigger cities, away from the coasts.

“We tend to look after each other,” said Maz, opening a bottle of beer and pushing it across the bar. 

She was a tiny older woman that ran the tavern/pub/meeting place in town. Some folks referred to her as the Mayor, some called her everyone’s mom.  All I knew was that if I wanted the protection of the town, if I wanted the two of us to be left alone, she was the one I’d have to endear myself to. I probably should have let Rey come along for the charm factor.

“Well, we’re both from the city, and I won’t lie, I have a bit of a darker background than she does, but we just want somewhere to be alone…to settle in and…” my cheeks felt hot, I felt almost embarrassed to say it. It felt trivial and soft, like a kid asking if we could use the car. “We just want somewhere to be together.”

Maz smiled and put a hand on my arm, patting it, nodding her head as if she completely understood. 

“There’s an empty cabin about three miles off of the main drag, not far from the lake. It's stuck back in the trees, used to be an old summer rental. It’s only one room, but there’s a pretty snazzy outhouse and a great hot tub if you can figure out how to get it working. It’s yours if you stay out of trouble. And if we call on you for help, you show up, you understand? Maybe your girl could take a few shifts at the bar so I could have a day off now and again.”

“Yes ma’am,” I said, shaking her hand before turning for the door. 

Rey was sitting in the front seat flipping through an old paperback book that she’d found in a box sitting on a picnic table that read “Help Yourself To A Dying Art”. I watched her smiling at the pages for a few minutes before turning back towards Maz.

“Would you…do you want to meet her?” I asked. “If you want I could bring her in.”

“I’d sure like that,” Maz said, wiping down the bar. “Tell her to come on in, you two can have a drink and I’ll draw you a map to the house. What did you say your name was again?”

So I tried it out for the first time. A new life, a new name. We were different together…we’d let the old things die. 

“Ben,” I said, waving to the car to get her attention. “I’m Ben Solo. I’ll tell Kira to come inside.”

****

 

She came away from the window and sat on the edge of the little kitchen table to watch me make coffee.

“What are you doing today?” She asked, swinging her feet, leaning back on her palms, her long legs spread a bit so I could see a hint of her little white panties. 

“Keep sitting like that and I’ll show you,” I said, handing her a coffee mug.

She laughed and pulled her knees together, hopping down from the table to look for something to eat. 

 

*****

We’d kept to ourselves for the first month or so, settling into the cabin and making it our own. Fall came early and the nights were cold. We slept in the double bed beside the small stone fireplace, Kira snuggled up beneath a thick down comforter and crisp white sheets. On most nights, even the coldest, we slept naked, wrapped up in each other, her legs hooked tight around mine, her head tucked under my chin. 

When we were finally alone and she was no longer afraid, her appetite for sex was insatiable. She often woke me with kisses or her hand on my cock, whispering in my ear how badly she wanted me. I was gentle with her for a time, because that’s what being in love means right?  It’s soft and sweet and you don’t FUCK, you make love. That’s what I thought until she started pouting, pushing me, calling me names, tempting me to let Kylo loose. After taking a shower she would parade around naked just out of my reach, standing at the window to brush her hair, eternally teasing me, not giving in until I would grab her and throw her on the bed. When we went into town she would flirt with someone at the diner, raising her eyebrow at me in some sort of dare. Some nights she wore the red silk nightie and asked me to hold her wrists above her head. 

“ _I trust you now_ ,” she said, laying beneath me. “ _I trust you enough to let go_.” 

On most nights I held her long after we finished, falling asleep while still inside her. I kissed her. I told her I loved her and showed her with my body. Most nights I held back and took care of her. But there were other nights; very memorable nights when we did nothing but fuck, raw and filthy.

*****

 

“I have to help Maz’s bartender with his truck,” I said. “I’ll stop by the store for some groceries…check in with Snap,” I trailed off, hoping she wouldn’t ask for any more specifics. Her limitless curiosity and stubborn persistence made surprises almost impossible. “How about you?”

She shrugged, looking back out the front window of the cabin towards the woods. I didn’t know how much longer we could stay here. We were safe, and we were together, but I knew she wanted more. She wanted to see more, to _do_ something. Perhaps we could go west in the spring, let her see more of the world she been deprived of growing up.

After a quick breakfast she walked with me out to the car, stretching and yawning. We hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep and there were little bruises on her wrists to prove it.

“I’ll be back before too late,” I said, kissing the crown of her head. “I love you.”

She smiled and headed back for the house.

“I love you too, Ben Solo.”

 

KIRA

Once the car pulled out of the driveway I pulled on my boots and headed out to the woods with a bowl full of some of our dinner scraps from the night before. I’d found the dog a few days earlier, skinny and skittish, wandering around the cabin. He was only about twenty five pounds, some sort of terrier mix; a mutt with one ear pointing up and one flopped over and a tail like a question mark. I figured he’d been abandoned by a family on the move as he was wearing an old tattered collar with a scratched and tarnished tag reading BABU. I felt terrible having left him in the supply shed but I wanted to make sure he was healthy and friendly and clean him up tok surprise Kylo. I’d been with him for so long and had never been able to give him anything, truly give him something he wanted. Something besides myself. 

“Hey sweet boy!” I said, keeping my tone low and light as I approached, setting down the dish of food beside the little cracked bowl of water I’d given him.

He ate voraciously, and I knew he’d gone more than a couple of days without food. He was dirty, matted, and when I found him amongst the trees he’d been shivering. I knew instantly that I needed to take him in. 

When we were between odd jobs, errands and repair mostly, we spent most of our days working on the house, trying to make it into something cozy enough for the coming New York winter. There was an abandoned apple orchard that we helped to harvest and were allowed to keep a bag or two...some raspberry bushes grew wild around the rental cabins and Maz showed us how to make them in to jam. Kylo searched through the forest for dead trees to cut into firewood that he stacked on the east side of the cabin, sheltered from the wind off the lake. We traded and worked with some of the townspeople for warmer bed linens, an old couch, even a woven rag rug that covered most of the floor. 

In the evenings we ate warm meals and built glowing yellow fires. We made elaborate impossible plans for the future, places we wanted to go, things we wanted to own or build or create. At night we pretended that we lived in a normal world, where we could achieve normal dreams. When we lay together in bed, Kylo would hold me, tickling his fingers over my back while he told me more about his mother, how he missed her more than he ever let on.

_"But I can't go back to her. Not now. Not after so long."_

I never found the right time to argue.

And he told me about his dog Chewie, a big raggedy brown mutt that followed his father everywhere and guarded Kylo when he was playing outside, even walked him to school once or twice. 

_“You asked me once what I miss most,”_ he said. _“I miss pets. Having a dog, the unconditional love of a mutt. I miss my dog.”_

 

_*****_

“Come on Babu,” I said, hooking the short length of rope to his collar. “Let’s get you cleaned up before Ben gets home.”

*****

 

I’d been nervous for the first month or two, looking over my shoulder when we left the house, holding my breath every time someone turned on the television in the diner, the little handful of patrons gathering around to hear the national news. But it was one of those very days that the weight of the world was lifted. 

Ben and I sat in an old red vinyl diner booth eating omelettes when one of the locals switched on the t.v. It was noon, and the national information channel always broadcasted news, warnings, closings and finally bounties. Every day different states closed borders due to crime or epidemics or national disaster. Every day another handful of cities declared their governments dissolved, martial law attempting to gain control. But the top story that day made my blood run cold. 

“Northern Region Governor San Tekka and his wife announced the death of their daughter today after a lifelong struggle with several immunodeficiency disorders and finally a case of pancreatic cancer that moved aggressively throughout her organs over the last six months…”

The story spoke of the bounty for Rey Gilchrist, and showed a picture of me from six years ago, much younger, hair long and brown, my ID from the Farm. Rey was still on the bounty list because The Farm would never give up until it was brought down, but without the Governor's donation the reward was ten times smaller and my name quickly fell to the bottom. Kylo squeezed my hand and we continued eating. 

When I looked up I caught the eye of Jaina, the woman who ran the kitchen. She was looking at the t.v. and then glanced in my direction with an eyebrow raised. I locked onto her gaze, preparing to run, but instead she smiled, nodded and finally winked at me before calling out...

“Let’s turn on some music in here instead. Haven’t we heard enough shit news?”

A laugh went up from the little crowd and the television was switched off.

 

  
BEN

 

It took her a while to get used to the names. She knew why it was necessary and I’d let her pick the name she wanted, but just like dying and cutting her hair she’d wrestled with some sort of inner betrayal, turmoil, difficulty in pretending to be someone else. 

“Those old names are gone. Those people are gone,” I’d told her. “Even when we’re home, even when it’s just you and me we have to be new.”

“I know,” she said. “I just want to be safe. I want to feel like I’m finally home.”

“You are Kira,” I said, pulling her close. “As long as we’re together, we’re home.”

 

 

Snap worked in the junkyard on the outskirts of town. I got along with him almost immediately because we came from the same stock…dealers, runners, people who could find whatever you needed. He'd helped us with a solar water heater and even had a line on a generator that we could get by spring. We’d shared a beer or two with Maz and I’d told him of my plans to surprise Kira, hoping he would help out. 

He did.

“Just be careful,” he said, helping me load the boxes into the trunk of the car. “Maz will have my head if anything happens to those cabins over there.”

It had cost me almost a third of the cash we had to our names and a promise to help Snap with a pick up truck he’d been trying to fix. I wasn’t really a mechanic, but he didn’t need to know that.

Turning onto the road to the house I could tell she’d already started a fire, the house giving off a warm yellow glow from the candles and propane lanterns we had, puffs of smoke trailing from the chimney. I was careful to keep the headlights off and pulled into a different driveway before she could tell I was home. The sun was going down and it was clear and cold, my breath puffing out in little clouds as I brought the boxes down to the lake’s edge. 

 

KIRA

Babu didn’t like his bath, but once he was clean and fed and plopped in front of the roaring fire, he curled up and fell asleep with a deep sighing groan of relief. He was just like us...alone, lost, trying to find somewhere to be safe. He wasn’t as big or fluffy as Ben told me Chewie had been, but like he said, those things were gone. Life was different now. I smiled to myself and fixed some pasta for dinner, watching out the window for his headlights coming up the road. 

It was always the little things that made me smile, the normal routines that I’d missed for so many years that filled my heart with bittersweet happiness. Setting the table and pouring glasses of water for each of us was so mundane, a nearly forgettable task, but I found myself grinning ear to ear as I did it. Making the bed, washing dishes, sitting and reading a book. Only six months earlier I would never have imagined those things were even possible. Only four months earlier I was terrified that I wouldn’t live to see my next birthday. It had been a long time since I’d felt safe enough to put down roots. It felt good to thrive in one place.

The door lock rattled and Babu looked up from his place by the fire. I hadn’t seen the car pull up, but I was admittedly a bit distracted. 

“Hey, Blondie,” he said, throwing the keys on the table and heading for the sink.

His hands were dirty, smudged with dark powder. He scrubbed and whistled a little tune, but when Babu stood and shook himself, rattling his collar, he froze. 

“What…” 

“Got you a present,” I said, grinning. “Or I should say I found you a present. This is Babu. He’s a stray I found down by the water a day or two ago. He’s been living out in that supply shed while I made sure he was tame and healthy. According to that tag he even got a rabies shot three years ago.”

Ben was already on the floor, Babu climbing into his lap and licking his face and I leaned against the table watching them get acquainted, my heart so full I was nearly in tears.

“This is amazing,” he said, scooping the dog up and burying his nose in his fur. “What a good boy you are…so handsome…handsome boy. You wanna stay here? You want to? She snores though…”

He was smiling his wide, toothy grin that was infectious and beautiful, lighting up his whole face and I went to the floor beside him, the two of us snuggling the little squirming bundle. Ben cooed and laughed, rolling the dog onto his back to rub his belly, and in that moment I could see him as a child, as a boy full of light and possibility, the whole world in front of him. My throat tightened and for the first time I felt the true heartache of the knowledge that he would never have a child of his own.  He’d been hidden behind a mask of anger and doubt and fear and cynicism for so long but deep down there was so much love inside him, pride and strength and compassion. Things he’d always feared giving at the risk of never getting it in return. But now it was just Ben, and his heart (though still guarded) was open. I didn’t want to hoard it all for myself.

We played with the dog for a few more minutes before I got up to dish out dinner. Looking out the window reminded me,

“I didn’t see the car pull up. Are the headlights out?”

He set the dog down and came over to the table, still smiling. 

“Nope, car’s fine,” he said, shoveling pasta into his mouth. His manners hadn’t improved. “Finish eating, let’s take the dog for a walk. I wanna show you something.”

“I literally just sat down two minutes ago,” I said, but he was already swallowing the last huge bite and let out a giant burp as he stood.

“Fuck it, we’ll eat later. Come on.”

 

BEN

 

It was cold and she piled on a t-shirt, a hoodie and my black sweater that nearly hung to her knees. It had a hole in it but she said it was her favorite. It was a moonless night, which was perfect, but she was worried about walking down to the water in the dark. 

“We’ve got a dog. I’ve got a gun…you’re fine,” I said, holding her hand. “Besides. We just need to get to that clearing where we found that raccoon skull.”

It was peaceful crunching over leaves and sticks, talking about our plans for the weekend, the winter…the future, the dog sniffing his way down the trail. It was peaceful to just be alone. 

Once we’d left the island I took the monitor off her ankle and we threw it into the lake along with the wrist cuff.  There was always a chance that someone else had figured out how to trace her through that chip and I didn’t want to take any chances. The car was just where I’d left it and I tucked her into the backseat, covered with a blanket so she could rest while I drove south, away from Door County. 

Palpatine had found Snoke shortly after I left New York, having heard that a handful of my contacts and connections were reporting me as having skipped town during the riot. Once her bounty went up and she was all over the news with me listed as her "companion", Palpatine had put the call out to find us.  Snoke had worked for him back in the day and when the boss finally got in touch they never had a choice. It had never been Snoke or Hux or Finn’s plan to turn Rey in and Rose finally convinced her that she’d been on her side from the beginning. They weren’t going to get very much of the money anyway, just “protection” from up top and the added fun of being under Palpatine's thumb for the rest of their lives. So once the puppet master was out of the picture, they were fine with letting us go. I'm not sure what happened to Owen, but I absolutely couldn't care less.

She held tight to my hand as we neared the lake and when we were quiet I heard her teeth chattering. I’d left a blanket in the clearing and made sure she was comfortable sitting on the fallen log, putting the dog in her lap before heading down to the water’s edge. I unrolled the length of fuse wire and walked back up closer before lighting it. It would give me a few extra seconds to get to her, to see the look on her face. With a flick of my lighter I set it alight and went back to her just in time. 

 

KIRA

 

From where I sat with Babu, it looked like he was lighting a cigarette and then he was running, grinning, and flopping down onto the cold ground beside me.

And then the sky was filled with color. Wide blooming fireworks in pink and blue and gold, shooting far into the night sky and arcing down like cosmic umbrellas, reflected in the lake. My heart swelled with emotion as I heard the familiar deep *thunk* of each shell launching and then the crackling display of falling stars. One after another they went up, not even a second’s pause between them. Babu barked and jumped and I laughed out loud, instantly transported back to my days on the lake, Fourth of July out on the water, picnics and parades, sunburns and family, back when the world, as broken and ugly and exhausting as it was…was perfect.

“Do you like it?” Ben asked, looking up at me from the ground. His eyes were wide and expectant, brows raised as he looked for my reaction.

“They’re perfect. I love them!” I sunk down to the cold wet ground beside him and flung myself against his chest, kissing him hard on the mouth. “I can’t believe you remembered. It's so beautiful!”

“Of course I did,” he said, as the last strands of twinkling color fizzled into the lake. “I remember everything you’ve ever told me, Schatzi.”

  
Later, after a warm bath and a couple of shots of whiskey, we climbed into bed and I curled against his chest, Babu burrowed under the blanket at our feet. These were my favorite nights. There was no question that our love was passionate and fiery, our sex energetic and frenzied and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but on those cold nights when we could just lay in the dark and listen to each other breathing, warm and safe beneath our own roof and a clear sky, I was in heaven with the devil I knew. Even as the world slowly crumbled around us, being in this wilderness together, finding each other...there was hope. The world had gone through worse and had come back every time. We were young, there was still time. There was still a way. Maybe this was the start of the road back. 

It had been nearly a decade since I had a family, somewhere I belonged and someone I belonged to. Now I had Ben. I was strong, I’d survived. Now I was loved, and I was finally home. 


End file.
